


Born to Lose

by BoxWineConfessions



Series: Heart Break Beat [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Fail sex, Gratuitous Punk Rock References, Heart Break Beat AU, Homophobic Language, M/M, Prom Night fic, gender fluid Yuri, getting caught having sex, how not to have anal sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-10-25 11:27:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10763313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoxWineConfessions/pseuds/BoxWineConfessions
Summary: “Um,” Yuri tosses his bag and his shoes onto the stoop. He gets up into Otabek’s space and drapes a hand over his shoulders as if they were slow dancing. “It’s prom dumb ass. And I know your sappy ass wanted to go.”Otabek’s mouth curls into a smirk. He wraps his hands around Yuri’s middle. “You knew that I wanted to go huh?”“Yeah Altin. You always do that thing where you perk up and then try to hide the fact that you’re all worked up whenever someone mentions it. So,” Yuri can feel his face flush redder not from the heat, but from embarrassment. “So,  we’re going. If you like...want to.”   OR: The Heart Break Beat Prequel fic nobody asked for.





	1. Pirate Love

_You've got to walk that walk_  
_You've got to talk that talk_  
_You've got to be that girl_  
_In the diamond world_  
_C'mon cut me so fast_  
_Pirate love_  
_Is what I'm looking for_  
_Pirate love_  
_Is what I'm wanting for_  
_I never ever_  
_Needed it so bad_

The speakers bounce so loudly that Yuri doesn’t so much hear it as it becomes streamlined into his brain. There’s no telling where he begins, and the song ends, and this stupid fucking dress is lumped in the middle.

Yuri leans over the sewing machine, grits his teeth, and presses the pedal. The needle strikes the cloth a few times in rapid succession before he pulls back and chomps at the cigarette in his teeth, “Fuck.” This seam is fucked, but Yuri doesn’t have time. He needs to finish this fucking tulle underskirt and he needs to finish it fast.

“Meow,” Peaches, his cat..No really his cat, among the four that live inside and the six or seven that linger outside always and whine until grandpa feeds them, whines.

“Fuckin know dude, this is a mess.” Yuri grabs his tank top and pulls it away from his chest in frustration. Then he presses it forward in a fanning motion. Why the shit was it so fucking hot already? It was only May. Grandpa refused to turn on the air conditioner until the first day of summer. As such, he’s almost ruined the fucking seam because sweat keeps dripping down into his eyes and blurring his vision. “But you know Otabek makes me always do the dumbest shit.”

“Rawr,” the cat responds. She gets up from her perch on the windowsill and pounces down on the desk. She saunters dangerously close to the sewing machine, as if she doesn’t have a care in the world.

“Don’t you fucking dare cat. Don’t you even fucking dare.” Yuri shoves the butt into an empty can of Tab soda and goes back to work in earnest. He’s got limited time to finish this fucker, get a bath, and then make Beka’s fucking day.

Yuri doesn’t look back up at the cat. The sewing machine makes a low whirring sound as he attaches the under skirt to the dress. “Don’t fucking judge me. Grandpa smokes in the house all the time.” Yuri readjusts the bobbin and soldiers forward. “I wish I had some beer or something.”

“Meow.”

“The Cisco?” Yuri motions with his chin towards the bed. “That’s for later I guess.”

Yuri finishes the seam, and inspects it closely. It’s not perfect, but he’s only gonna throw this fucker on once. Yuri snips away a few undone edges with his scissors. Then, he goes to the dresser. He pulls out a fresh pair of underwear. On muscle memory alone, he reaches for socks. That would be fucking stupid.

Yuri slams the dresser drawer shut and stomps into his mother room. He marches around the water bed, opens the top drawer, and hopes for the best. The best being, no misplaced underwear, and a fresh unused pair of nylons.

Yuri spies an unopened pack. He’s stolen all of the rest, but good goddamn. Somebody out there loves him. They’re a shade of brown that is darker than his skin, but whatever. The dress is long and what he really needs is something to wear so that the heels don’t rub.

Yuri showers quickly, and then darts back into his room to blow dry his hair. He combs it out straight. He wishes he could braid it up nicely. Everyone else there would have their hair laden with product. While he looks at himself in the mirror tacked on over the closet door, he wonders if he should wake up his mom. Yuri combs his shoulder length hair from root to tip and shakes the thought from his head.

He moves back to his desk, rips the nylon package opens with his teeth, and sits down on the bed. Carefully he bunches the pantyhose up into his hand and presses his toes into the foot of the nylon. He carefully rolls it up mid knee, and then repeats the motion with his other foot. Yuri catches sight of himself in the mirror. He looks really fucking stupid shirtless, with nylons and boxer briefs on underneath the sheer nylons.

Oh yeah, not to mention his face is seven sorts of fucked up from his most recent fistfight.

“Well,” he says out loud. Peaches has drifted out of the room, but the brothers DeeDee and Joey have wandered in. “I guess I’m about to look a lot stupider huh?” Yuri grabs for the dress and pulls it on over his head. He tussles with the tulle petticoat, but manages to get it on without fucking with the zipper. He probably wouldn’t have been able to pull it up himself.

Yuri pulls his hair from underneath the collar. He turns to look at himself in the mirror. Yuri found this black and purple monstrosity at the thrift store, and paid an arm and a fucking leg (ten dollars) for it. It had a purple sequined bodice and an adjoining skirt that’s two toned too. Black and purple. Yuri’s destroyed a gown he found in the back of Mom’s closet and shredded the purple sleeves, and made new ones. Big ruffled things that stand out dramatically.

Yuri looks damn fucking good. He needs some makeup, but shuffling through mom’s makeup drawer is risky. He’ll have to see if Ami will be generous with him tonight and let her use her eyeliner. His eyes travel down to the plunging neckline. He looks almost naked without them. There is nothing but skin against shity fake satin. Nylon or whatever. He’ll look so much fucking better if they can make it down to Lilia’s Pawn by six.

Yuri shoves his feet into the slightly too big, lilac colored heels. They clash with the dress, but it was the best that he could fucking get since he’s pushing a men's’ ten these days, which seems to translate to a size ladies’ impossible. He looks at his feet in the heels and decides that they already fucking hurt. How the fuck do women do that?

Yuri shuffles out of the heels and into his foam flip flops. Then, he gathers the heals up into his hand, pops out the tape from the stereo, grabs up his bag, and carefully tiptoes down the steps.

Mom was still passed out on the couch from before. Yuri creeps down the stairs, and for a moment, he considers waking her up and asking her to get the disposable camera and taking a few photos together. She’d probably like that. Her prom photos are still in a frame in the middle drawer of her vanity upstairs.

Right now her mouth is wide open, and she is snoring softly. She’s wearing an old shirt that’s got the neck cut out wide around the shoulders. Her long flaxen hair fallen down around her face, and in sleep she actually looks good. Almost kind of young.

Yuri shakes the thought from her head. She wasn’t in the best mood before she passed the fuck out. Better not wake her. Yuri doesn’t want any fucking pictures anyway.

Yuri rips off the cover of the TV Guide and scrawls a quick note to his mother on the unprinted side. “Out with Beka. Be back later. Maybe.” Because he assumes they’ll end up here. Fewer people to deal with in general, but who fucking knew.

Yuri closes the door behind him as quietly as he can going through all the exaggerated movements of closing the latch slowly, and pushing the screen door shut so that it doesn’t squeak with high pitched tones loud enough to wake the dead.

It’s well over a mile to Otabek’s house, but less than two. Not that he watches the odometer on the car when grandpa gives him a ride. The walk over does horrible awful things to his body; fuck this May heat. He can feel the sweat drip down his ass crack, and pour down his face. Why the fuck did he even bother to take a goddamn bath?

At the very least it’s a good thing that he didn’t really fuck with his hair or slather on some makeup. His face would be melting into the neckline of his dress by now if he did. Yuri can see the heat rise up off the pavement. As he walks, men strip their shirts and continue on their walks to the corner store. They ride zig zagged paths across both lanes of the street. Women wear tank tops that expose their bra straps from underneath. They push large oversized strollers.

Yuri’s hair is long enough that he “passes” for the most part. Getting off of his block is tricky. Everyone knows him, and there are several people: the guy who got busted for selling, the guy that stashes his pot in the bbq grill to hide it from his tee-totalling wife, the brothers that used to ride the bus with Yuri until Otabek started getting the car...They like to hassle him, and Yuri’s in no mood. He cuts through the ally, hops over the fence to the abandoned house that's adjacent to grandpa’s and cuts across the street into another alley.

Yuri inspects his dress on the other side. Not a crinoline out of place.

Once that’s done, he’s got no choice other than to strut down Broad street like he owns the goddamn place. The McDonalds where the shake machine is never fuckin working? His. The Kroger that mom is banned from for passing bad checks? His. The fuckin van with three flat tires in the parking lot? The one that the old toothless guy lives in it? Well lot fee’s on him this month cause it’s fuckin his.

Of course there are honks. There are cat calls and whoops as the struts down Broad street and tries to ignore the feeling of nylon pressed against his crotch and is thighs. At the very least, he wishes there was a goddamn breeze, but no, everything’s stagnant as he walks. The heels become heavy in his hand, and the bag pulls at his shoulder awkwardly. Otabek better look so fucking happy and so fucking surprised when he shows up.

Yuri shows up on the Altin’s doorstep borscht fucking red and dripping in sweat. He can only imagine what kind of pit stains he’s rocking underneath these poofy sleeves. Yuri looks at the fake rock by the doorstep, and debates letting himself in. He’s done it countless times. Had a fucking key up until recently when he got his key privileges revoked.

Whatever.

Otabek’s sister Ami opens the door. She’s a year ahead of Yuri and a year behind Otabek in school. Her long brown black hair is pulled into low pigtails tied with yellow ribbons that pop against her dark hair.

“Holy shit Ami,” Yuri’s eyes go wide, and unapologetically drift to her stomach.

“You are fucking huge.”

It’s no fucking secret that Ami got knocked the fuck up by the asshole son of the pizza joint. Otabek’s parents were fucking livid, and well, if his kid was stupid enough to get knocked up by a dumbass, Yuri would be pretty pissed off too. But Ami’s never exactly been the brains of the family.

At the very least, Yuri owes her a thank you. Ami getting knocked up, and then not fucking telling anyone until she was damn near six months along really distracted nicely from the whole, “That Plisetsky boy turned our only son into a big flaming faggot,” fiasco that had been ongoing before this current issue. This is his paraphrasing, not Mr. and Mrs. Altin’s actual words. They said something along the lines of, “You don’t have to do everything that Yuri does.” As if Otabek was simply going along with what Yuri wanted when he sucked his dick in the bench seat of the Impala at lunchtime.

“Nice fucking shiner asshole,” Ami responds. “It matches my fucking brother’s.”

Yuri blinks a few times unphased. Yes he had a shiner. Him and Otabek got into a scuffle outside the Marathon station the other night.

“Yeah but,” Yuri tries to pick his jaw up off of the stoop. Yuri’s always rocking a shiner. Ms. Altin always makes her wear these giant fucking shirt dresses to school to cover up. Ami hasn’t missed a single day since shit hit the fan, and she seems pretty determined to finish out the year. “Now I can actually see how fucking huge you are.”

“Why are you so dressed up?” Ami changes the subject. “I mean I know my parents have chilled about you and Beka. You’re welcome by the way, but-”

Yuri grits his teeth, and through them growls, “It’s prom fatso, if you weren’t-” but a soft but firm voice calls from within the house, “Yuri?” Followed quickly by, “why are you dressed like that?”

For the record, Otabek’s expression was so fucking worth it. His mouth is slack and parted slightly. His eyes are hungry. They look Yuri’s body up and down up and down as if he can’t quite decide if he’s confused, or enamored, or turned on.

Yuri’s totally okay with Otabek being a little of each.

His shiner is healing much better than Yuri’s. There’s a hint of dark red around the corner of his eye. The rest of the skin is a sallow yellow.

Otabek emerges from the house and stands besides his sister. Ami darts back inside citing that she needed to, “go check on dinner or something.”

“Um,” Yuri tosses his bag and his shoes onto the stoop. He gets up into Otabek’s space and drapes a hand over his shoulders as if they were slow dancing. “It’s prom dumbass. And I know your sappy ass wanted to go.”

Otabek’s mouth curls into a smirk. He wraps his hands around Yuri’s middle. “You knew that I wanted to go huh?”

“Yeah Altin. You always do that thing where you perk up and then try to hide the fact that you’re all worked up whenever someone mentions it. So,” Yuri can feel his face flush redder not from the heat, but from embarrassment.” “So, we’re going. If you like...want to.” Yuri stares at his sandal clad feet against the rough concrete stoop. There’s cigarettes littered all over the concrete and the grass. Camel reds, Otabek’s dad’s favorite.

“Can I shower? And um,” Otabek looks down his body. He’s got his tight black jeans on, and his favorite band shirt. Someone local, that Yuri’s only ever heard from the parking lot of bars that card. The shirt is faded, and has tiny holes around the silkscreen logo. Otabek’s got his sleeves rolled up over his shoulders. “Maybe get something better to wear?”

“Yeah,” Yuri pushes inside past Otabek. He hopes there’s something he can steal from the fridge real quick. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t eaten today. “But make it snappy. I wanna make it down to the pawn shop before it closes. Get the necklace.”

Yuri storms through the living room, and shoots Otabek’s older sister Alina, who is sitting on the couch a quick nod before throwing the fridge open.

“Hey, don’t touch my leftovers, Yuri,” she shouts over the television. “They’re that styrofoam thing. I’ll kill you.”

Yuri looks at the styrofoam takeaway box and considers it for a moment. However,sure he owes Alina a favor. Or two, or three. He’s pretty finds what looks like a chicken breast and some potatoes in a tupperware container. Yuri starts inhaling it in large wolfish bites.

“You wanna go down to Lilia’s.” Otabek repeats. “And get the necklace.”

“Yeah, so hurry up. Put your face on pretty boy.” He says with a full mouth.

“You got the ticket?”

Yuri pulls the ticket from his purse and stains it with juices from the chicken.

“How much is on it? Where are you gonna get the money?” Otabek asks.

“Look.” Yuri goes over to the counter and rummages around into the silverware drawer and finds a fork. He starts stuffing potatoes into his mouth next. “I take your sappy ass to prom. You take me to get my jewelry.”

“I’ll be ready in twenty minutes.” Otabek gestures to the potatoes. Yuri scoops up a forkful and feeds him a bit. Otabek chews slowly, and swallows. “Alina,” he calls into the livingroom.

“Whaddya want Beka?”

“Let Yuri use some makeup? We’re going to prom.” 

* * *

 

“Look, look, look,” Alina repeats herself and grabs the sponge from his hand. “You’ve got to blend it. Also,” Alina extracts the bottle of foundation from his hand. He’s already smeared plenty over his face, and it feels like he’s wearing a mask. “You’re also not hiding that shiner from anybody.”

Yuri closes his eyes and lets Alina work her magic. She did go to cosmetology school after all. She brushes softly over the crease of his eye. Then, there’s a bit of pressure on his lashline. When the pressure fades, Yuri opens his eyes again and is greeted by the sight of Alina’s Ramones poster. He likes it. It’s not the logo, or the famous first album cove. It’s the Rocket to Russia cover. She has it on Vinyl, but only cause him and Otabek pulled their paper route earnings together for a solid two months to buy it for her from that fucking punk who ran the vinyl shop that thought he was better than everyone.

“I see that he’s going for subtle,” the voice is behind him, but it’s soft, and light, and airy. Everything that all of the Altins are not. Except for of course, Farida. Farida was the youngest. And if Darya and Alibek survived teen pregnancy, their eldest dropping out of college to go to cosmetology school, and their only son being gay, well Farida’s mouth was gonna kill them. “At least that black eyeshadow hides your shiner.”

“If I could find a purple tux, I wouldn’t be wearing this.” Yuri bites in response. It’s true. He’d found a nice robins egg blue get up, complete with cumberbund and everything. Unfortunately, it was about four sizes too big, and he didn’t trust himself to bring something in that far. “As for my eye-”

“Purple looks good on you,” Farida interrupts. She darts out of the room for a moment, and comes back while Alina is doing the other eye. When she returns, she’s wearing her dark purple party dress. “We match now.”

“Yeah we do,” Yuri fishes his phone out of his bag. “We should get a picture.”

Alina finishes his eyemakeup. It’s mostly smokey gray, with a bit of micro-glitter and matching purple accent. It looks way fucking better than he’d ever be able to pull off himself with mom’s dried up eyeliner and mottled foundation.

Alina has them sit together on the edge of her bed, and she snaps a few photos. Then she sits down in the middle between them and holds the camera facing toward them with her uncharacteristically long arms. If Farida talked like she was adopted, Alina’s long gangly limbs made her look like she was adopted.

“You do need a purple tux though,” Alina says as she looks through her makeup. “You’d look just like Johnny Thunders,” she laughs. “Or maybe, Brian Ferry.”

“Maybe I look like Johnny thunders now,” Yuri barks.

“New York Dolls,” Alina’s laughter is laced with doubt. “More like midwest kewpie,” Alina wrinkles her nose and laughs once more. Yuri watches her in the mirror. From here he can see the wrinkles across her nose and the big patchy birthmark on her collarbone.

“Someday,” Yuri says in a voice that tries to be guff but ultimately fails. “I’m gonna repay all the favors I owe you. Then I’m gonna tell you what I think about you.”

“Well,” Alina twists a purple lipstick. She puts it down onto her dresser and then grabs another. “I’d love to hear it someday.” This one is a shade darker, maroon purple black. “You got the mouth herpes?”

“If I do, it’s your brother’s fault.” he shoots back.

Alina hands him a purple lipstick.

“You should see if mom will braid your hair,” Farida beams. “She braided mine this morning.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s the best idea,” Yuri huffs.

“You should!” Farida leans back onto the bed and writhes around in her purple party dress.

Yeah right. Yuri believes that things can be smoothed out fully between himself and Otabek’s parents. If only because Otabek and his parents are pretty close. However, Yuri’s firmly decided that that isn’t going to happen until he gets a copy of the house key back. Minimum. “Shouldn’t you go make yourself useful elsewhere Farida? Pour ice water into Otabek’s shower or something?”

Farida kicks her legs up in the air playfully, as if she is thinking about it. “No.” She decides finally. I’ll let him get handsome, like you.”

Ms. Altin caught him stomping down the stairs. He wanted to find something else to eat, and Alina had been yelling after him not to mess up his makeup.

“Is Otabek taking you to prom?” She looks confused. Like she’s silently rehashing every conversation she has had with her son in recent memory trying to recall anything similar to prom coming up. Not that it would. Otabek and his parents are close, but it doesn’t mean that they talk.

“Something like that,” Yuri responds. If anything he’s taking Otabek despite the fact that Otabek is a senior and Yuri is a sophomore.

“You should let me fix your hair.” The air hangs thickly between them. Yuri going down the steps and Ms. Altin going up. Ms. Altin doesn’t so much suggest things. She tells you, and if you’re smart you do it. “After you get something to eat,” her voice is always soft, but now it wavers slightly. As if there’s something more that she wants to say, but doesn’t know how to say it.

Yuri crams a package of sugar wafers into his mouth, and then stomps back upstairs to Mr and Ms. Altin’s room. Soon enough he’s sitting cross legged on the floor, and Ms. Altin is sitting at her desk chair with Yuri between her legs. “You need a trim.” Not a suggestion, a statement. “Split ends.”

“Yeah, I know.” Yuri mumbles. Grandpa’s been working a lot more. He hasn't had time to cut it.

“You should have Otabek do it. He’s getting better.” The Altin’s pass around various chores and tasks until one of them is deemed “good enough” at it. None of them can cut hair worth a damn, but the only one in the family of seven who will actually pay for one is Otabek.

“I had to give your key to Farida,” Mrs. Altin says dryly as she manipulates the strands of his hair. “She dropped hers into a storm drain when she was chasing after a bullfrog. Or something.” It’s a lot of explanation. So much so that Yuri wonders if Ms. Altin will have to go lay down and rest after all of this. Using so many words at once can take a lot out of an Altin if you’re not careful. “Keep telling Alibek to get another one cut down at the hardware store, but you know how it is with him.”

Alibek once accidentally forgot three of the five Altin children at the grocery store. Alibek once lost his glasses for an entire day because they were resting on the top of his head. What Mrs. Altin was trying to say is that he shouldn’t take it personally that the key has not yet been returned.

Yuri only hears the first part really.

“Otabek says that it wasn’t your fault,” and Yuri knows she’s talking about Otabek’s black eye.

“It wasn’t.”

Mrs. Altin pats his now exposed neck with the tips of her fingers lightly. “You’re all finished.”

Yuri rises, and looks at himself again in the mirror. He’s done that way too fucking much in the past couple of hours. Mrs. Altin has put his hair in nice even plaits that will hopefully keep the heat away from him.

“Thank you,” he says softly. Yuri knows that he didn’t do anything wrong, but it’s also nice to know that Otabek’s parents have reached a somewhat more...accepting conclusion. Better not fucking let the moment actually lead to some kind of natural resolution. So, before he can think about what nice fucking healing gesture all of this actually was, Yuri word vomits out, “ Thank you, for getting the fuck over it. It means a lot to both of us.”

“Yuri!” Mrs. Altin tries to sound scandalized. The fact of the matter is, she’s heard him say far worse.

Yuri spends the rest of his time sitting on Otabek’s bed trying not to fuck up his hair. Otabek’s room feels more like his own than his actual room. Otabek’s room is littered with books, and all sorts of things that were taken apart in hopes of being put back together again someday. It reminds him of the way that grandpa starts projects with aggressive vigor, but doesn’t finish them. The difference of course being that even if it takes Otabek the better part of a decade to finish something, he’ll actually finish it.

Looks like he’s got the carburetor from the bike spread out in a dozen or more pieces across the desk. Yuri knows that he’ll get the fucking thing fixed and put back together someday. The question in Yuri’s mind remains, why spend another four years in school when you were already good at something that could make you money.

Yuri grabs one of the many moldering copies of mad magazine from the magazine rack on the bottom of Otabek’s bedstand. The date on the cover reads 1982, and, suffice to say they’re a little bit past that date. Yuri flips through the pages blandly. Hope that the mildewed smell doesn’t transfer onto his fucking dress.

That happened once. They took a big stack of Alibek’s pulps down to the exotic bookstore and traded them in for cash so Alibek could pay to get the Impala plated. Yuri reeked all day.

Yuri flips through the pulpy yellowed pages, quickly, but not fast enough to tear them, until he finds Spy Vs. Spy.

The door rattles slightly when Otabek walks in, “Oh, you’re in here.”

Now it’s Yuri’s turn to feel his jaw go slack. Otabek’s got on his nice black dress slacks. The one he wear only for major holidays. Along side it is a crisp white shirt and a lavender colored tie that is tied nicely around his neck. It’s laden with a grey colored medallion pattern. Yuri’s only ever seen Otabek wearing his shitty clip on. Yuri supposes that of Alibek’s stash, this is the one that matches his dress best.

“Should I go?” Yuri barks out in response.

“No,” Otabek decides, and get a bottle of aftershave from his dresser. Yuri doesn’t much like the scent, but Alina gives it to Otabek and him because she gets it for cheap from of of the girls who sells Avon at the academy. “Suspenders?”

Yuri snaps the comic book shut. “Yes please.” So fucking what if they’re the kind with bright shiny metal clips that dig into one side of the pants and into the other? Otabek doesn’t break them out often. He wore them the night they tried going to the dancehall. He wore them the night they tried sneaking into one of the fancier pool halls in the city. They make Otabek look fine as fuck.

Otabek carefully clips one end to the back of his pants, extends them over his shoulder, and then clips them to the front. With great care he runs his finger under each one, and makes sure that they aren’t twisted up.

“You got the keys to the Impala?” It had been spotty lately since Ami announced that she was knocked up, and Otabek’s parents decided that they suddenly had a problem with him.

“Yeah,” Otabek responds. He shucks his blazer on. Well, its his for the night. The mismatched tan elbow patches and too long sleeves denote the blazer as Alibek’s. “One problem though.”

“Which is?” Yuri rolls his legs off the side of the bed and shoves his feet into the heels. Otabek looks like he’s almost ready.

“Pictures.” Otabek catches Yuri’s gaze in the mirror and holds it steady. The look explains that it’s more than a few quick shots with the disposable camera that Yuri’s stowed in his bag. Lots of group shots, and couple shots, and solo shots against the birdbath in the back yard. Yuri feels his face drop.

“Fire escape?” Before Otabek’s parents bought the place, it had been divided into a duplex. Otabek and Alina’s room at the top of the stairs had a locking door at the staircase into the main house, and a separate one going downstairs into the back yard.

“Divide and conquer,” Otabek decides. “Act like you’re going down to get some chips or something.” Otabek suggests while combing a thick dollop of product through his hair. The way Otabek slicks his hair back makes Yuri fucking pant. No one should look that fucking good.

“I already ate my weight in leftovers.” Yuri complains about the plan.

“Yet, it’s not unbelievable that you would want more,” Otabek responds in a deadpan tone. Judging his hair sufficiently coiffed, Otabek reaches for the keys to the Impala. It’s got this little posable hand key chain, that’s permanently flexed into a middle finger.

“I’m the one visibly making a break for it.”’ Yuri quips back. Cause he’s all for playing the fall guy. Just not so much when Otabek’s family is involved. Stil, Yuri finds himself kicking off the heels for the umpteenth time that night. Making a break for it is no good if you’re falling ass over teakettle down the stairs.

“On three,” Otabek decides, grabbing his wallet and hooking the chain to the belt loop on his jeans. Fucing idiot. Did he even know how exquisitely stupid that looked? It almost undoes the sexiness of the coiffed hair and the suspenders.

“One,” Yuri moves towards the door to Otabek’s room.

“Two,” Otabek moves toward the fire escape door that leads to the steps from his bedroom.

“Three,” Yuri says a bit too loud and darts down the stairs. Getting past Alina’s room is no big deal. She fucking gets it and doesn’t say a goddamn word even though they make eye contact from her cracked open door.

He tries to be quiet going down the goddamn steps but it’s a challenge to not knock into the sixty billion photos that dot the walls. He brushes past Farida on the steps, and like a goddamn watch dog she chimes, “I think mom wanted photos?”

Yuri charges around the corner, reaches for the door, and surges outward before he can fully hear Ms. Altin yell after him, “Yuri? Are the two of you leaving?” Cause fuck that. You don’t get to give him and Otabek the fucking cold shoulder for a few weeks and then decide it’s all okay, and let's get pictures like a normal fucking family.

Yuri dives into the passenger seat of the Impala. Otabek’s already got the engine on and almost turned around. Immediately Yuri digs through his bag and pops the cassette tape in.

“The pawn shop huh?” Otabek says as he throws it into gear and they pull out of the driveway a bit too fast. Gravil pelts the car and makes a sharp tinny sound. Add that to the list of things the Altins are going to be pissed about in the very near future.

“Yep,” Yuri responds. “How much trouble are we in?”

“A little.” Otabek decides. “Less trouble than we were in for dating,” he supplies.

Yuri laughs, sharp and bitter. In between playing with the radio, he fishes a pack of Camels from the glove compartment. Not Reds like Alibek likes, but Blues like Otabek likes. He takes one from the pack, lights it up, and hands the lit cigarette to Otabek who accepts it immediately. Then, Yuri lights one up for himself. “Maybe we’ll get one of those shitty pictures. At prom with the little back drop or whatever.”

“Yuri,” Otabek hangs a left at the light. “We’re going to the pawnshop right? You’re making a pretty big assumption that we’re ever going to get there at all.”

* * *

 


	2. Chinese Rocks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Otayuri old school punk playlist: https://playmoss.com/en/boxedwine/playlist/goin-steady

Yuri mashes the fast forward button on the tape player on the console while Otabek tries his hardest to keep it under thirty. Not only are little kids out on their bikes today seemingly not caring where the sidewalk ends and the road begins, the old hag on the corner always tells Otabek’s dad when they drive irresponsibly. That’s the last fucking thing they need right now.

Yuri slams the “pause” button on the cassette player, and then mashes the “play” button. He’s stopped it at _just_ ...Well as close as you can get to _just_ the right time.

 

 _I'm livin' on a Chinese Rock_  
_All my best things are in hock_  
_I'm livin' on a Chinese rock_  
_Everything is in the pawn shop_

 _The plaster fallin' of the wall_  
_My girlfriend cryin' in the shower stall_  
_It's hot as a bitch_  
_I should've been rich_  
_But I'm just diggin' a Chinese ditch_

  
Otabek hangs a left to get back onto Broad street, and then guns it onto the on ramp to the highway. The engine roars like it’s been beaten down one too many times, and is gonna go out on it’s last dying breath swinging. Yuri scrambles for purchase on the dash, and accidentally bumps against the little hula girl doll on the dash. She’s covered in dust and cigarette smoke, but she still shakes her ass like she hasn’t got a care in the goddamn world. Yuri’s kind of jealous of her smiling dancing ass.

The tires squeal and the engine revs as Otabek tries to get the fucking tank of a car up to the speed limit on the highway, which is sixty. Gunning it is all relative when you drive a goddamn boat. As it stands, they have time to make it down to the shop, but he’s gotta pull a hustle first before he can even step foot in Lilia’s. If he pulls off a hustle it’ll be down to the very wire. Good thing Otabek knows how to go fast, even when they gotta take it slow.

“Do you even like girls?” Yuri asks leaning on the dash and flicking the hula dancer once more.

“Um,” Otabek sighs in response. Like he’s reading too fucking much into Yuri’s dumbass question. “I mean it’s here from when my dad drove the car. You remember.”

“Yeah,” Yuri grabs another cigarette, and ignores the pissed off look Otabek gives him. He’s got some in his bag. They’ll have plenty for later, plus Otabek’s eighteen now. The biggest problem these days is scraping together the money for a pack.

“I don’t think she should have to leave.”

“Right.”

Otabek extends his arm across the long bench seat. In Otabek’s own quiet kind of way, he’s asking Yuri to sit closer. It’s so hot his balls are sticking to his leg, and he’s pretty sure all this fancy ass makeup Alina caked to his face is melting off of him. Yet and still, he feels compelled to scoot over on the seat and sit close to Otabek, with his legs sprawled out wide on either side of the gearshift.

A soft hand squeezes his shoulder. Yuri knows that it’s Otabek’s way of saying “You look nice.” and “Thank you,” and “This means a lot to me” all at once. Except for this is somehow better, cause Yuri doesn’t have to listen to the sappy kinda words that make his stomach churn.

Once they finally get up to gear and stay at the same speed, Otabek shifts his hand from resting onto the gearshift to resting on Yuri’s thigh. His fingers pet gently against the satiny skirt of the dress. The fabric scratches lightly against his nylons. Under any other circumstance the touch would annoy him. Now, Yuri simply leans into it. Tries not to think about the patch of communal sweat that’s growing between him and Otabek on the bench seat.

Otabek takes fist over fist of fabric and bunches it up high until he can rest his hand on Yuri’s nylon clad knee. “Uncomfortable?”

“Itches like a mother fucker.” Yuri confesses.

Otabek removes his hand, gears down and flips on the turn signal maneuvering towards the inside lane.

“It’s nice.” He notes dryly. Which essentially means that Otabek can’t decide if it’s the most romantic gesture Yuri’s ever made, or if he wants to park somewhere right now and rip the nylons off of Yuri in the back seat.

Which let’s be real, Yuri would certainly love the latter. Especially if it meant not having to go to the fucking prom.

“You clean up alright yourself, Altin.” Yuri knocks his toes together in his heels. “You gonna lance my fucking blisters after i walk around all night in these goddamn shoes?”

“Sexy Plisetsky.”

It goes silent between them for awhile. Yuri watches the cars pass them by despite Otabek’s insistence on being in the fast lane. They’re only going seventy or so miles per hour. Someone on a loud red Yamaha zips by them in the middle lane, and yuri voices out loud what they’d both been thinking, “You think you’ll have the bike done soon?”

Otabek clenches his jaw tight in thought for a moment. Yuri knows that he’s going through a mental list of all the work that needs to be done, and the approximate cost of the parts that are needed. “Maybe.” He decides finally. “It depends on whether or not my grandparents send me any money for graduation.”

Yuri nods. Otabek’s grandparents live in Chicago. They own a Bodega, and live in a tiny ass apartment. They drive a tin can of a car that makes Grandpa’s look downright luxurious. Yuri knows all of this, because he had the “privilege” of joining the Altins on a pilgrimage when he was in seventh grade and they were both on spring break. They don’t “have money,” but they definitely, have money. In the sense that they make up for the tin can by going on cruises and bringing back all sorts of awful souvenirs. Key chains shaped like flip flops, brightly colored swim suit wraps, but only for the girls.

“Hey,” Yuri points to the green off ramp sign. “Take this exit.”

“The pawn shop is off of High Street.” Otabek furrows his brow slightly, and Yuri can see it in the rearview mirror. “You don’t have all the money.”

“Not a cent actually,” Yuri confesses. Doesn’t matter. Otabek doesn’t say no to Yuri. Conversely Yuri doesn’t say no to Otabek. Even to the questions he dare not say out loud like, “will you go to prom with me?”

“I have forty in cash,” Otabek offers immediately. Simultaneously, he signals to get over onto the off ramp, as if he knows that Yuri will not accept the money, even if it were enough.

“Look,” Yuri snuffs out the butt in the dash’s overflowing ashtray. “I’ve got this. Okay? It’s my stupid fucking necklace.” Yuri can see the pained look that Otabek shoots him. Okay sure, fine. If it were just a necklace he would’ve let it ride. “Lemme just give you a nice night out.” and then to not sound super fucking mushy he adds, “So when you’re off fucking college boys with nice cars and name brand shoes, you remember your high school sweetheart.”

Of course he said it to get a reaction, so he’s not shocked when he gets a reaction. Otabek’s right hand leaves the wheel. He somehow pulls Yuri closer on the bench seat so that their knees knock together. His hand creeps up Yuri’s body from his hip to the tight material of the bodice wrapped around his chest. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”

“How about you concentrate on driving,” Yuri rebuffs the comment and tries to hide the uncertainty in his voice with gruffness. Otabek’s said he’s not going anywhere. Yuri doesn’t exactly believe it. Sure, he’s staying in town to go to the state university. Still it means talking to people, and hanging out with the people that live in the city. It means being around people that can go out. It means meeting people that haven’t already fucked their whole lives by having a record. It means finding people that are interesting. It means getting to know people that don’t carry more baggage than a traveling fucking caravan.

“Where am I going?” Otabek says it in a tone that suggests he accepts that they’re going to do a job.

“Down to the corner,” Yuri says, and can’t contain his laugh. “I’m tryna turn a trick.”

“I’m going to make an awful pimp,” Otabek says with a certain lilt in his voice. It’s the kind of tone that he might use in front of others, but Yuri’s pretty sure he’s the only one that notices it. He’s knows for a fact that he’s the only one that appreciates it. Stores it up and thinks about it later on because of how nice it is. “Nobody’s touching you.”

Otabek hangs a right onto Patterson, as if he’s remembered the neighborhood and knows where to go.

“Shit Beka,” Yuri slides back over to the passenger's seat and flips down the visor then flips up the cover to the mirror. “I look so good. All I gotta do is sell looks.”

“Then you aren’t doing that either.”

Yuri laughs. Not that kind of pained stifled bullshit that he does whenever he wants to hide how he feels. He really laughs, the way he only can when he’s alone with Otabek.

“I wanna know what kind of job we’re doing.”

“You’re not doing a goddamn thing,” Yuri insists.

 

* * *

 

Otabek parks the car, and Yuri’s ass stays planted in the seat until Otabek can make it round to the other side to open his door. Then, Yuri decides that he’s done being ladylike. Yuri barges into the dance studio in two parts thunder and one part tooth gnashing fury. He throws the double doors to the studio open wide simultaneously and stomps in with Otabek behind him.

He’s fucking pissed there aren’t a line of suburban moms with, “Can I speak to the manager,” haircuts waiting in the lobby. From within the actual studio he can hear someone committing crimes against humanity while they pound the most underwhelming and uninspired rendition of the bullfighting theme from Carmen on the upright piano. It’s got to be Victor. Victor can’t play to save his goddamn life, yet his ass was always at the piano for lessons. It really fucked their students over at recitals, when Hiroko finally came in with half moon shaped glasses falling off her nose and hit all of the notes.

His suspicions are only confirmed when he pulls Otabek into the main studio by the hand,

Victor’s tall frame is crammed into the low seated piano bench. His arms move awkwardly over the keys and he hits most of the notes. His shitty playing doesn’t matter so much when Yuuri’s moving elegantly to the music.

The fluorescent lighting in the studio is harsh and makes almost everyone look washed out and ugly. The mirror behind the barre is cracked on the left side, due to an accident in moving aforementioned upright piano into the studio years ago. Yuri wasn’t present for the event himself, but he does remember Victor being very distraught throughout lesson after the crack had appeared.

“Yuu-ri,” Victor says softly so that his words are barely audible over the awkward notes. He doesn’t so much as turn away from the piano to look at them, as if he knows from the fury and the swearing exactly who it is. “You have a visitor.”

The lighting is shit and makes almost everyone look bad, save for Victor and Yuuri when they moved. It was almost criminal. Yuri’s limbs look like strands of fluid silk as he shifts from a poised arabesque to a turn and a a leap. It looks like a skein of silk has been unfurled from on high. Yuri jumps, and archs, moves, and lands once more.

Whenever Yuri himself does this, he feels like he’s got heavy cinder blocks strapped to his feet, never mind the fact that even Victor compliments his form

Victor rarely gives compliments.

“Dear,” Yuuri turns on the balls of his feet and shifts into a simple foot position. “I believe it’s you that has a visitor.”

“No, Yuuri, you see Yurio has come to see you.” As he talks, Victor mangles several notes. This isn’t lost on Yuuri, who cringes audibly, but tries to move forward through the piece nonetheless.

For fuck’s sake this could go on all goddamn day and frankly they don’t have time. “I don’t care who the fuck I’m here to see. I need to talk to at least one of you assholes.”

Victor turns, looks at them, and his eyes go wide. He mashes a few more errant keys in surprise as he lifts his hands away from the piano. “Yurio!” he beams as if he’s fully comprehended that they’re here, and he’s in a goddamn dress. Then, his grin melts into an open mouthed look of horror. What happened to your eye?”

“Nothing worth talking about jerkass.”

“Yurio, you need to be careful. It’s not safe around here to just-” Victor interrupts himself with another gasp. His eyes are now trained on Otabek. “You too?”

Otabek nods silently.

“Do you need help? Are you on the run?” Victor’s got pinprick teardrops in the corner of his eyes. His voice sounds on the verge of cracking. Yuri can feel the space behind his eyes get tight and achy as he grits his teeth in frustration. Victor needs to shut up. Yuri can’t tell him to shut up because he wants a favor. Yuri won’t be able to barter for the favor if Victor won’t shut up. Victor won’t shut up because he’s the kind of person that “cares”. Those are the kinds of people you ask for favors anyway.

“Some of the girls mentioned it was prom?” Yuuri supplies. He grabs onto Victor’s shoulder offering support. The gesture silently tells him to calm down.

Otabek nods silently.

“How wonderful. I never went to mine,” Victor chirps.

Who gives a shit? Nobody cares if some sad New York prep school queer went to his prom or not. What was more sad was that he ended up here, and he was going to die here. All because he fell in love. “Doesn’t he look lovely Yuuri? Do you need chaperones? We could’ve chaperoned?” Victor loves playing mother hen despite the fact that Yuri hasn’t consistently paid for or attended lesson in over a year. Yet, they never treat him as a student or a social caller. He lingers in-between legitimate friend and client awkwardly. Has for awhile now.

Victor tucks stray strands from Yuri’s coif. Several strands had blown free due to the wind whipping through the open windows on the Impala. He smooths Yuri’s ruffled sleeves, and then abruptly grabs his shoulders and pushes them backward forcing him to stand up straight.

“Back off asshole,” and Yuri stomps his heels against the hardwood floor as he tries to escape Victor. He ends up bumping into Otabek. Otabek stands stock still. Holds Yuri firm. Yuri still interprets Otabek as an impenetrable wall protecting him from Victor, even if he’s still within Victor’s grasp.

“So what do we owe the visit Yurio?” Yuuri asks as he quietly links his hand into Victors and pulls him away from Yuri.

Yuri sucks in air harshly. He practiced this. He went over exactly what it was he was going to say over and over and over again to Peaches while he was sewing his dress together this afternoon. He told the cat in a calm, but firm voice, “I was wondering, if for the wedding you still needed someone to...”

Yuri loses all train of rational thought when Yuuri steps into his space, and reaches over him to Otabek. Yuuri was doing the exact thing he’d pulled Victor off of Yuri for doing moments ago. He smooths the lapels on Otabek’s jacket, and for a moment seeing the other man mother hen Otabek makes him see red. He’s used to their bullshit. Otabek, not so much. “Give me some fucking money.” Yuri lets the abrasive words fall out of his mouth and shatter to the floor before he can even remember exactly what he’d rehearsed. “Um, please.”

Yuuri, without skipping a beat smiles at him and responds, “Money’s tight Yuri. It’s not quite that simple.” At this point, Katsuki has had years and years to understand his grit and his penchant for just fucking babbling.

“What, did Nikiforov get cut off from his trust fund?”

“Yuri,” Yuuri closes his eyes and speaks in a matter of fact tone, “That’s Katsuki-Nikiforov.” The comment gives Victor and Otabek a chance to pick their jaws up off the floor, and gives Yuri a chance to reorganize his thoughts.

“I mean um,” Yuri looks at his shoes. They’re not only mismatched in color with his dress, but scuffed slightly, probably from him dropping them so frequently and then stuffing his feet into them on the go. “Do you still need someone to do your wedding cake?” His voice is soft, and he can’t even pump faux aggressiveness into his voice.

In that moment, Yuri is seven years old and being brought to dance lessons for the first time. Minako still owns the place. Yuuri’s assisting with lessons after school. Yuri thinks that it’s so cool that Yuuri’s in high school. Yuri is eleven years old. Yuuri lets him into the studio even though it’s closed. Yuuri’s always practicing, and so Yuri just shows up sometimes.

Yuri is fifteen years old, and he’s goading his strong silent boyfriend, “aren’t you jealous of Yuuri?”

Otabek is seventeen years old. He waits outside of the studio while mothers stare sharp dagger like glares right through him. Leather jacket, Camel cigarettes, and torn jeans, it’s clear as fuck that he doesn’t belong here. “Not really,” Otabek decides. “Those tights will be on my floor in an hour. Not Katsuki’s.”

Yuri is sixteen years old, and he can’t even do a proper favor for the only person that has been a constant in his life other than Otabek and Grandpa. He has to fucking charge him for it like Yuuri and Victor are goddamn marks.

“Inna wouldn’t return our calls” the words fall out of Victor’s mouth before he can think about what it is that he’s saying. Victor’s eyes go wide and his mouth falls open.

Yuri just keeps talking before he loses his nerve. “Of course mom wouldn’t. I’ll do it. I know all about it. If you don’t fucking like it, I’ll pay you back. Every cent.” But here’s the thing, he knows they’ll love it. Yuri can remember doing catering all together: him, mom, grandpa and grandma. Yuri can remember piping roses in royal icing when he was ten and lopping them off the nail with little blunt flower scissors and tossing them onto styrofoam cake dummies to put into the fair.

He’s out of practice now, but it has to be something that can be retrieved from memory.

“How much would you like?” Yuuri asks.

Yuri looks at Otabek, and Otabek looks back at him blankly. Right. Cause Otabek wouldn’t fucking know how much to charge for a cake just like Yuri doesn’t know how much to charge for mowing lawns or fixing flat tires. Otabek doesn’t know how much left on the fucking necklace.

Yuri flip flops between how much he needs, versus how much he wants, versus how much money Victor and Yuuri realistically can pay. He’s not great at arithmetic, just check his fucking report card. However, he knows that it’s seventy on the necklace, plus his stomach is already fucking growling. They’ll need to pick up burgers at some point tonight. Plus, he’s out at least thirty bucks for the dress and the shoes. Oh yeah and he asked for the night off from Nishi’s. He’s not stupid though. He’s probably out that regardless. “A hundred and fifty, plus the cost of supplies,” he barks.

“Wow,” Victor chuckles. “A hundred and fifty.” He turns to Yuuri, “He must be good? Yeah?”

“Hmm,” Yuuri looks at the mirror on the wall, and the crack down the middle. His eyes then drift to the ceiling stained with water spots. He looks to Victor, then to Otabek, then to Yuri. Yuri knows what he’s going to say. “How about a hundred and twenty up front. And then more later?”

Yuri knows it well, cause he’s always banking on later too. Pawn necklace now, pay it off later. Let the bill go this month, and pay it off in full later.

“What about a hundred and fifty now, and I’ll fix the lamp.” Otabek interjects. “Parts included,” he adds quickly when he can feel three sets of eyes heavy upon him.

Yuuri Katsuki’s husband’s favorite thing since moving to this goddamn town is trawling through flea markets that dot the interstate, auctions that fill up big old farm houses on weekends, and yard sales that typically offer little more than old womens’ clothing and broken appliances. Recently, he picked up a tacky as fuck, found in everybody’s grandma’s living room oil motion lamp from the flea market last fall. He knows this for a fact cause him and Otabek broke his grandma’s six or seven years ago when they were running through the living room.

It’s the kind with the plastic base painted copper gold, and the little statuette in fake copper inside. Victor’s has a nude figure in the middle, and long strands of plastic in between that dripped oil down as if she were encased in a fountain. Victor’s currently added some fake ivy to the base to make it look like it’s overgrown. Except the silk leaves are faded and riddled with dust. Like every other iteration of the fountain he’s seen in shoved into the corner of living rooms, and basements, it’s not functional.

Yuri usually hates it when Otabek just interjects himself into his business like that. Otabek is okay at negotiating things like auto repair, but there are still certain things that are outside of his domain. Right now, Yuri’s torn between adoration and frustration. On one hand, he’s never gonna turn down extra money. On the other hand, Yuri wanted to do all of this for Otabek. It’s not really fair if Otabek’s gotta fix some tacky ass piece of flea market refuse on his behalf.

“Oh that would be really nice to get fixed wouldn’t it Victor?”

“Uh-Hum,” Victor hums. But he’s too busy leaning into Yuuri’s touch. Yuuri’s pulled Victor close by the hip and is working a hand down his ass-pocket to go for his wallet. “Yuuri,” he coos in a pseudo scandalized voice.

“Victor.” Yuuri deadpans. He extracts the wallet and produces several twenties from his the other man’s wallet. “We only have a hundred and forty in cash.”

Yuri accepts it immediately and stuffs it down the bodice of his dress.

Behind him Otabek warns, “Yuri,” which is Otabek’s stern way of saying, “let me put it in my wallet.”

“Victor,” Yuuri catches Victor, who has turned on his heel toward the rear exit of the studio. The one that leads upstairs to the apartments above, one of which they live in with two dogs, and and far far too much “mid century” furniture. To him, it just looks like shiner versions of the shit they’ve had hanging around the house for forever. “Why don’t you help Otabek load the lamp into the car?”

“Yuu-ri,” the other man whines. “I’d wanted to get my camera. Yurio and Otabek look so cute. You can barely notice that Yurio’s shoes don’t match his dress, and that Otabek’s wearing clip ons.”

Yuuri’s eyebrows threaten to migrate up into his hairline. “Go help Otabek.” And the sternness in his voice says that the now is implied. Yuri’s grateful for Yuuri’s assertiveness.

Otabek and Victor retreat to the lobby. He can barely hear Otabek mumble under his breath, “lift at the base.”

“You do look really nice Yurio.” Yuuri comments finally when they’re both alone.

“Thanks,’ Yuri stammers gruffly. “I don’t know why everyone’s making a big fucking deal about it though.” It’s not for Otabek’s mom, or Victor and Yuuri, or his mom, or anybody else. It’s about him, and it’s about Otabek, and really it’s mostly about Otabek because the only school event any one will catch Yuri at is detention.

“Let’s get a photo.”

“What? Didn’t you hear me?”

“You look so nice.” Yuuri makes dual brackets with his thumb and forefinger. He moves into Yuri’s face, and holds his framed fingers in front of their faces. “Click.”

“So fucking gay.”

“You messed up your face. We have to do it again.” Yuri moves his index finger, “Click.”

“Really fucking gay.” Yuri let’s Yuuri’s look of disapproval and confusion roll right off his shoulder. Sure, he’s going to prom with a dude, but it’s like different. He’s going to prom with a guy. He doesn’t own a fucking dance studio with a guy. He’s not marrying a guy. Big fucking difference.

Right?

“You want me to “accidentally” drop the lamp when we take it out?” Yuri can hear the low rattle of the Impala. Otabek’s good like that. Keeping things moving forward.

“Nah,” Yuuri chuckles. “She’s grown on me really.”

“Fucing doubtful.” Yuri takes one final look at himself in the mirror before he steps out of the studio. Purposefully, he pulls loose a strand from the tight braid around his head and lets drape down over his ear. He always sees girls in the movies like that. Yuri thinks it’s kind of cool. “I have all of her stuff. So, we’ll talk about what you want?”

“Next week sometime maybe.”

Yuri’s eyes sting at the brightness of the outdoors. They were only inside for a few minutes, but outdoors is like the surface of the goddamn sun.

“If you drink, don’t drive home. Call us,” Victor titters into Otabek’s ear. “If you do drugs, don’t drive home. Call us,” he goes on. “Do you need condoms?” Otabek goes bright fucking red. “We have condoms? I think? It’s been awhile since-”

“All right shut up!” Yuri lights up right in front of Victor to prove a fucking point. They’re not fucking kids to be coddled, and they’ll do what they want.

As if on cue, Otabek opens the passenger side door, and extends his hand to Yuri. Yuri uses it to steady himself.

“Well, be safe. There are always all sorts of dreadful things happening to teenagers because they don’t have good adults,” Victor wails historically. “And don’t get another black eye. Two at once would be so dreadful!”

“And have fun!” Yuuri calls after Otabek’s thrown the car in reverse. Yuri waves a long hand out the window as they pull out of the parking lot and into the main street. Otabek all but peels out of the parking lot. The car squeals in protest as he shifts back into drive too quickly.

“Kay,” Yuri says staring down the large lamp in the middle of the goddamn bench seat. “One more stop.”

“Right,” Otabek responds. “Awful lot of trouble for something you don’t really wanna do Plisetsky.”

“I know right? You’re a lot of fucking trouble.” Yuri stabs his cigarette in the air wildly. “Also, why the fuck is this little naked broad in the middle of the bench seat? I can’t sit close to you?”

“You’d rather have it in the back seat?” Another smirk plays upon Otbabek’s face. Like he’s waiting for Yuri to get it. “You don’t wanna park later?”

“Of course I wanna fucking park later asshole. I didn’t stuff my fucking balls into these stupid fucking nylons to not have you take them off.”

Otabek’s laughter is deep and genuine. He uses his laugh so infrequently that it always makes him startle. Yuri swears to god that it shakes and rattles the rusted out doors so hard he feels like his ass is going to bounce out of the car and onto the pavement at any moment.

* * *

 

It’s nothing short of a miracle when Otabek gets a parking spot right in front of the pawnshop. Lilia’s is located on the main drag of their shitty little town, wedged between the post office and the uniform supply company. The spaces on the block are all metered, and together Yuri and Otabek scrounge on the floorboards and along the cracks in the bench seat for two dimes and a nickel for the change needed to park.

Yuri watches Otabek feed the meter, and digs at his ear furiously with his pinky nail. “Maybe you should just go in. Here, take the ticket.” It’s no fucking secret that Lila, a waif of a woman who can’t weigh more than ninety-five pounds soaking wet, is the only person in this goddamn town that scares him. Not the fucking bouncers at Sharkeys where he waits for grandpa to end his shift, not the bodega owner who chased him out of the shop for boosting wine, not the cops who slammed his chest onto the hood of the cruiser to “teach him a lesson”, and not even his own goddamn mother.

There’s something about the way she looks down at him over her sharp crooked nose. She does this even when he hasn’t had the chance to do something wrong. Yuri doesn’t even shoplift from her because she scares him so much. Not to mention she’s more or less the family banker at this point. There’s something about the way she looks directly at him while she writes up the ticket. She never breaks eye contact, and knows all of their info perfectly. There’s also the mouldering mink that rests across her shoulders constantly like it’s an ermine stole in a shitty museum oil painting.

It’s one of those things that isn’t rational. One time when he was a kid and mama was taking in some of grandma’s jewelry he knocked over a vase. The look that she gave him scorched into the back of his skull and into his memory for forever. Made him tiptoe down the stairs and into the giant cavernous mouth of the building into the basement and get a broom and dustpan and sweep it all up.

“Yuri.” Otabek pulls a thin black comb from his pocket and fusses with his already perfectly coiffed hair. He’s wearing so much product that Yuri’s shocked that the teeth of the comb don’t shatter. After checking his reflection in the window from all angles, Otabek takes his hand into his. For a moment they just stare at the guitars in the shop window. How long has Yuri stared at the bright purple guitar in the window? It looks like something right out of Purple Rain, or one of those videos where the girl rolls around on the hood of the car. Years now. It must be years by now, because he can’t seem to remember a time when it hasn’t been in the window.

Thick black iron bars are fitted over the window display obfuscating some of the other items in the case. A row of brightly colored Nike shoes, another guitar, a pair of chainsaws. It’s an ugly and mismatched group of objects, but her husband used to do the big display window. She would do the smaller display case by the door. She would fill it with big pearls, and lab created sapphire pendants, and all sort of things that Yuri could only look at with envy. But that display case was knocked in by vandals, and so she bricked it up instead.

“Let’s go inside,” Otabek squeezes his hand.

They cross the threshold into the shop and the bell on the door jingles. Lilia’s perched behind the counter polishing an antique pistol with a mother of pearl handle. She’s got the chamber separated from the rest of the gun, and she’s intently scrubbing it with a thick gray polishing pad.

“Here to pay something off,” Yuri gruffs.

“As much as you look like Inna, I know you’re not her,” Lilia doesn’t even so much as look up at them from over the pistol. “And I’m pretty sure Inna’s name is on the ticket.”

Yuri swallows the lump in his throat. “It says release to ticket holder,” he tries not to let his voice crack. Mom will have her do that sometime, so she can just give the ticket to grandpa and have him pay it off. Not to mention the necklace is fucking his. Grandma left it to him and everything.

Lilia snatches the ticket from his hand and scrutinized it carefully. She has printed goddamn receipts with the name and the address of the shop across the top. She really needed to fucking chill.

“I’ll be right back.”

But not before setting his dress ablaze with an intense scrutiny that makes his heart feel like it’s going to pound out of his chest. He can only assume that he’s white knuckling and squeezing Otabek so hard that his hand feels like it’s gonna fall off because he’s shaking his hand out of Yuri’s vice tight grip.

“They won’t match that dress you know,” she says finally.

Yuri wants to tell her to go fuck herself. He dare not before he gets his hand on the necklace.

Yuri splays his palms flat onto the glass counter in the most reckless act of rebellion he can muster when he’s running on adrenaline alone. He presses hard onto the glass and hopes that he leaves the nastiest fucking handprints. Between his fingers, he catches glimpses of flecks of gold, and diamonds loose in their settings, and emeralds and rubies cut just so.

“I think you need an emerald.” And of course Otabek’s looking at him with that doughy wide eyed look that is neither a smile or a scowl, and nothing but sugar and saccharine held together with syrup. “It would look good with your eyes.”

“I think you need a fat lip. It’d look good with that shiner.”

Lilia returns with the necklace. Yuri pulls the bills out from his bustline and pays her. He takes great delight in the way her nostrils flare like she’s smelled something awful when he hands her money from his dress. Then, he makes sure to fucking get the fuck out of the pawn shop as quickly as possible.

With unsteady hands, Otabek pinches at the claw clasp and hooks into the other side of the necklace. Yuri tries to ignore the whisper soft touches on the back of his neck and around his neckline. Instead, he moves to adjust the passenger's’ side mirror so that he can see himself.

“I don’t know what she was talking about. It looks fine.” Yuri runs his fingers over the long strand of pearl that rest against his neck.

“They do.” Otabek agree. “Really good actually.”

“Damn right,” they’re big fat chunky pearls that glisten in the light and feel deliciously gritty against his touch. Grandma always said they were Akoya pearls...from the orient or whatever. Yuri knows that they’re big, and they’re loud, and they make him look damn fine.

Yuri toys with the pearls. Continues to run his fingers across them. He rubs one, then a second across his teeth feeling the grit against enamel. “We gonna dance to something sappy?”

Otabek’s opened the passenger side door, and waits for Yuri to get in. “Better than top forty.” Otabek closes the door and scrambles around to his own side of the car. He starts the engine quickly, as if there’s a chance Yuri will call the whole thing off and fly out of the car.

He just might.

Yuri lights up another smoke and lets it dangle limply from his lip. Then, he leans forward and starts mashing buttons on the cassette player once more. They’ve gotta have good entrance music. They’ve gotta walk that walk. They’ve gotta talk that talk. He’s gotta be that girl. Yuri mashes the play button, and hopes for the very best. “Let’s go Beka.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr @ boxwineconfessions.tumblr.com


	3. Born to Lose

Yuri tilts the bottle of Cisco Red from one side, to the other, watching the large air bubble in the bottle move from one end of the vessel to the other. The liquid moves slowly, as if the bottle were filled with syrup, or the inside of a lava lamp, and not something that the label called “wine” .  
  
“Just drink it,” Otabek says with a huff.  
  
“As much as I want to,” Yuri catches Otabek’s gaze. “This is it. Wouldn’t it be more fun to have it after?”  
  
Otabek has been parked in the venue lot for a good thirty minutes while Yuri pinches cigarettes between his shaky fingers. He promises that each one will be his last, but it’s a lie. Yuri wants to call the whole thing off. “Let’s go home. I’ll get some pants. We can come back.” Yuri’s never donned a dress in school before. He saves those things for after school, weekends, or even better during the summer when he doesn’t need to worry about keeping his legs warm.  
  
“Drink the wine Yuri. Look,” Otabek opens the car door, walks around to the trunk, pops it, and walks back with a six pack of Milwaukee's Best.  
  
Yuri’s eyes go wide. “Alibek’s?”  
  
“Yeah,” Otabek pops a can open as if to show Yuri that it’s okay. Yuri twists the cap open to the Cisco and takes a long draught. He shivers when he pulls the bottle away from his mouth. “He made a big show of putting it in the trunk and told us to have fun.”  
  
“No shit.” Yuri takes another drink. Alibek isn’t the most expressive kind of guy. His favorite thing to do is zone out in front of the television. Other favorites include shaky and dangerous home improvement projects, and watering the lawn at three A.M when he can’t sleep, which is often. Yuri’s been recruited to work several of the home improvement jobs. There are no instructions. There isn’t even profanity filled curses underneath his breath like with grandpa. There is no doing anything right, but on the other hand there’s no doing anything wrong so long as they have something that vaguely resembles a final product.  
  
“You think he expects it to last a full week?” Alibek buys a six pack every Saturday when the family goes to the supermarket. He abstains on Sundays, but usually because Otabek’s mom opens a three dollar bottle of chardonnay at dinner. After work on Monday Alibek has one Milwaukee's Best. After work on Tuesday Alibek has one Milwaukee's Best. After work on Wednesday...Wash and repeat until it’s time for a new six pack.  
  
“I don’t think so?” Otabek responds. “I don’t think we’ll get another any time soon.” Otabek’s awkwardly grabbing his knee over Victor and Yuuri’s lamp. Otabek has parked them back in the very back of the lot so they can drink and they can smoke as they please, but Yuri still feels as if he’s melting. It feels like he’s soaked through his underwear and his tights with sweat.  
“You think that’s his way of coming around?” The Cisco gets better the more you drink it. Yuri has to be careful to limit himself to little sips. He doesn’t want to make a complete ass of himself. He doesn’t want to get in trouble for being drunk at a school function. They can do that. There’s always stories of some asshole getting expelled for being super drunk at prom.  
  
Otabek takes a few sips of his drink, and then steals Yuri’s half burned cigarette. “Probably,” he exhales slowly. “I don’t think he would’ve known to have a problem with it unless mom told him so.”  
  
Yuri nods. Otabek’s father isn’t stupid. He’s just operating at another level: something slow and otherworldly.  
  
It goes silent between them for awhile. There’s only the sound of long Camel Red exhales, and Yuri trying to stifle Cisco burps into the back of his hand. They can’t have the radio on for too long without the engine. It’ll lose it’s charge.  
  
Then, out of nowhere, there’s a loud slap on the hood. Yuri jumps with a start and nearly drops his cigarette and sets his dress aflame. Then, there’s an eerily large face attached to an impossibly small face poking through the window. “Hey nerds.”  
  
Yuri is aware that normal people have more than one friend. He’s aware that it’s probably good that Otabek has another person that he considers a friend. It doesn’t stop Kami from getting under his goddamn skin.  
  
It’s clear that her parents have money. She has a computer at home and invited them over to play videogames Friday. She wears new clothes. It’s clear that her parents have money, but it doesn’t stop her from making god awful decisions: bright green eyeshadow with lemon colored micro glitter, dark lip liner with nude colored lipstick that clashes against her dark skin. The only thing that makes Kami “like them” is that she says she’s fucking around with a girl in Oregon on a chatroom. Yuri isn’t sure if he believes this, but Kami does spend an awful lot of time in the computer lab. Yuri knows this, because the computer lab is lined with large windows that face the hallway, and it’s on his route to booking it out the back door when he’s fucking done with school. Usually around 11:40.  
  
Yuri can’t help but think that if instead of having an imaginary girlfriend, she had someone here.. It would take the heat off of them, just a little bit.  
  
As it stands, she’s probably here with one of the boys in engineering club that always hang around her in a pack. “You kids wanna smoke?” But she’s already clamoring into the back seat as if they’ve said it’s okay. She catches a glimpse of Yuri’s cigarette and adds under her breath, “something better?”  
  
“No,” Yuri decides for the both of them. He’s not inherently against it, but it always smells disgusting. He knows that’s really fucking ironic given the fact that he’ll burn through a pack of Mistys in a day if he has them around.  
  
“Can I get a lighter then?”  
  
Otabek hands her a clear blue lighter over the back seat. It’s the kind that you get for fifty cents at the convenience store instead of a dollar for a BIC. “If you let us have our privacy,” Otabek’s voice isn’t angry, it’s firm. Yuri’s always admired that in him. His ability to say what he means without being mean about it. It’s something that is elusive Yuri no matter how much he tries to be less of an ass.  
  
“Alright,” Kami accepts the lighter and rolls out of the backseat of the Impala. “Don’t get her pregnant tonight Plisetsky. They’re fertile.”  
  
“Ha fucking ha,” Yuri barks back. Yuri would never admit it, but it is kind of nice that whenever she rips on them. She always makes Otabek sound like the girl. Not him.  
  
Yuri redoes his lipgloss. Then, the smooths his eyebrows down with spit covered fingers. Finally, he checks his teeth for bits of food. He really did some damage on the Altin’s leftovers earlier. Finding himself satisfactory, he turns to Otabek who is still trying to comb back his rock hard hair.  
“Alright Otabek, let’s fucking do this.”  
  
As if on cue Otabek slides out of the seat, and scrambles over to the other side of the Impala to get Yuri’s door. Yuri takes his hand, and slides out. He tells himself over and over again internally, “it’s the heels not the booze,” when his knees knock together and his leg quiver. He never considered that it might be nerves.  
  
Otabek places an arm around his middle and steadies him. “You do look really nice.” And then he’s getting up onto the tips of his toes to meet Yuri and steal a kiss.  
  
Yuri stifles a giggle, “You look really dumb with smeared lipstick.”  
  
Otabek procures a red handkerchief seemingly from thin air. He wipes his lips off, and shoves it back into his rear pocket. It sticks out just slightly. Yuri worms his hand around Otabek’s body to push the handkerchief the rest of the way back into his pocket. “That's smooth Altin.”  
  
“I know you think it’s cool.” Otabek isn’t wrong. Otabek has always got his handkerchief, and his pocket knife, and his plastic comb, and those three items are always infinitely more useful than whatever crap he has in his bag at any given time.  
  
Otabek offers his arm to Yuri.  
  
During the haul across the parking lot, Yuri makes sure to fall into his very best resting bitch face. He can feel the burn of eyes upon him almost as soon as he steps out of the Impala. It doesn’t get any better as they climb up the large white gray sandstone steps of the venue. Yuri doesn’t particularly like this building. Mom had her first wedding here when he was eight. He wonders if Otabek remembers that. They’d just met, and grandpa let Otabek stay for the weekend so Yuri had someone to play with. He can remember her yelling at the groom out in the parking lot beforehand. He can remember her feeding him wedding cake inside. Yuri squeezes Otabek’s hand crushingly hard as Otabek pulls him through the threshold.  
  
Of fucking course there are calls from the parking lot, and snide comments made just loud enough so that they can hear. “Whose ass are you kicking tonight Plisetsky?” and there are catcalls that call attention to the fucking obvious and uneventful fact that he isn’t wearing pants “When’s the sex change Plisetsky?”  
  
Yuri takes it in stride. He fucking has to at this point. There’s no time to be pale faced and knock kneed and hope that Otabek can shield him. “There’s your fucking answer asshole,” he says to the first question, “whose ass are you kicking.” He hopes that no can hear the crack in his gruff voice.  
  
Yuri can hear the polyester of fat old Mrs. Henderson’s dress rustle after them as they walk, “Mr. Plisetsky.” She repeats herself, “Yuri Plisetsky, suspended students are not allowed at prom.” When that doesn’t work she starts after Otabek. “Otabek. Otabek Altin, your parents will be informed of this.”  
  
It pisses him off really. How the teachers use Otabek to get under his skin. Yuri will do whatever the fuck whenever the fuck he wants. He’s over school and he’s over being told what to do. He’s extra over shuffling between periods and pretending that these people somehow know better. Like he’s supposed to take care of himself every other minute of his life, and just relinquish that control the moment he walks into the school. Yeah fucking right.  
  
But Otabek. Otabek is in honors history, and honors chem, and rides the bus in the middle of the day to the community college for English classes with a bunch of other nerds. Yuri would rather die than fuck any of that up for Otabek.  
  
Otabek lets go of his hand for a brief moment, only to throw open the double doors that led from the lobby into the ballroom. He throws them both open dramatically, much like Yuri threw open the doors to VIctor and Yuuri’s dance studio. Together they walk in through the thrown open doors.  
  
Yuri wishes he still had the balls and the wherewithal to stomp through the entrance like he fucking owned the place. He’s such a fucking pussy. Can’t put his money where his mouth is to save his goddamn life. It isn’t the entrance he deserves, but it’s the entrance and the image that Otabek conjures for him.  
  
Inside the lights are low. The most consistent source of light stems from the oscillating multicolored lights from the ceiling. Yuri rolls his eyes. It’s only a matter of time before the disco ball is lowered, and the whole ballroom smells like teenage sweat and the kind of pheromones that lead to unplanned pregnancies.  
  
“What now Altin?” Yuri growls out of the corner of his mouth. He’ll do whatever stupid kind of thing Otabek wants him to do, so long as Otabek tells him what it is. He’s already done the leg work and got them here.  
  
“Um,” Otabek locks eyes with him. The lights flicker off of his undershirt and his jacket. It’s still hot as balls in the building where Yuri had hoped for pumped in air conditioner that chilled his bones to the core. At the very least, maybe Otabek will shuck his suit jacket somewhere and show off his suspenders. “I think we’re supposed to dance.”  
  
Yuri’s gut reaction is to complain. The current song is a pulsing techno beat that he’s certain he’s heard Ami pump through her boom box. Yuri doesn’t do “today’s hits”. Then, he remembers that he’s here for Otabek, and he can’t complain about everything or it’s going to defeat the fucking purpose.  
  
Yuri watches Otabek clench his jaw. He watches the muscles in his throat move as he swallows what is presumably a huge lump in his throat. Otabek furrows his brows. He always does that when he’s made up his mind and there is no going back. “I don’t like this song.”  
  
Yuri can feel the tension drain from his body immediately. The DJ is shitty, but he’s hired out for every single dance, wedding, and sweet sixteen in town. He plays the same shitty rotation of top hits, “classic” barf inducing dance songs like the hokey pokey, and garbage slow dances. Of course he isn’t going to play anything good. “If you’re waiting for the Cure,” Yuri liked classic punk, Otabek liked post punk. Alina said it was never going to work out between them, but so far they’d managed. “We’re gonna be here all night.”  
  
From the corner of his eye, Yuri spies the girl’s gym teacher, Ms. Rash. Ms. Fucking, swear to god, couldn’t make this shit up, Rash, skulking about. She’d probably not just tell him he wasn’t allowed to be here, but throw his ass out onto the street too. “Anyway, let’s get out of the goddamn entrance. I don’t think that’s a smart place for me to be.”  
  
Otabek steers them towards the back of the cavernous mouth that is the darkened ballroom. He swipes two orange sodas from the refreshment area, and steers Yuri into the farmost corner. Here the multicolored lights don’t reach. Otabek tugs at the straps of Yuri’s purse, and after they’ve drank most of the pop, Otabek dumps the rest of the Cisco red inside.  
  
Then they stand against the back wall of the venue like they’re standing outside the retaining wall outside the chicken shack eating legs and thighs and guzzling red pop. Or, they’re standing outside the back of the village pantry smoking cigarettes and waiting for something cool to happen. Or, they’re standing against the back door to Otabek’s house waiting patiently for the kitchen light to go off so no one knows that they’ve snuck out.  
  
Otabek pulls Yuri close so that he’s standing right in front of him. Their bodies are pressed together, and Yuri’s had just enough Cisco to press up against Otabek’s crotch with his ass. Otabek doesn’t respond. He simply breathes against Otabek’s neck.  
  
If Yuri grows much more they won’t be able to do this. It’s already awkward with the added height of the heels. Yuri feels like he has to bend down ever so slightly so that Otabek can rest his head on his shoulder.  
  
“Madison Miller is pregnant,” Otabek notes when a pudgy girl with red hair and large freckles waddles past. Her dress is blue, and Yuri thinks that it makes her look like a robin’s egg.  
  
“Isn’t she just fat?”  
  
“No, Ami told her.”  
  
Yuri snorts, “pregnant girl group huh?”  
  
A boy Yuri recognizes from his remedial math class walks past in a pack of boys. It’s the kind of pack that Yuri would find dangerous if he weren’t pressed up against Otabek. “Mickey jerks off thinking about his sister.”  
  
“I don’t believe that.”  
  
“He’s dumber than a box of rocks Beka,” Yuri takes a sip of the pop and Cisco combination. It’s so thick he could chew it, but it’s somehow better than Cisco alone. “He said so to his friend. The one in my grade with a full fucking beard.”  
  
“Wow,” Otabek says as if he’s still trying to process that little bit of information. “You should make one like that.” A girl stomps past in a chartreuse monster of a dress. It’s got several tiered layers like a cake, with several layers of crinoline underneath each one. It’s quite clear that she’s trying to book it into the bathroom before anyone can see her crying.  
  
“Um, no.” But there’s another girl who drifts past, Mindy, or Mary, or Mila or something. Yuri can never remember her fucking name. She’s an absolute fucking weirdo. She smells like pot, hangs out with Kami, and bummed a cigarette off of Yuri once or twice out by the low retaining wall by the softball field. She feels entitled to express her gratitude for said cigarettes by lifting him up off the ground in a hug. Yuri doesn’t bum her cigs anymore.She’s wearing a cheetah print dress with a feather boa wrapped around her shoulders. “But that is nice,” he decides. “Real fucking nice.”  
  
They keep on like that for a few songs. The conversation drifts between ragging on anyone who isn't them, sharing bits of gossip, and stealing orange and Cisco flavored kisses from one another. Yuri laughs at something particularly dumb that Otabek has shared with him. Otabek’s chest rumbles against his back in low and contained amusement.  
  
It’s really easy to get lulled into the slow, lazy, Saturday morning kind of sexuality. It’s the kind where Otabek peppers kisses across his neck, and Yuri rubs Otabek's shoulders. It’s the kind that they flick off and on, and off and on, over and over again like a little kid messing with a light switch. It’s the kind where Otabek will start kissing him, stoking the fire. Then, just as easily as it begins, it ends once more. Yuri will leave to go make food. They begin again during a commercial break with sloppy open mouthed kisses. It’s the kind of barely-there-sexy where they don’t even really know that they’re doing it until they have each others dicks in their hands.  
  
“Yuri?” Otabek whispers into his ear. It sends shivers down Yuri's spine. “What's wrong?”  
  
“The fuck do you mean, ‘what's wrong?’”  
  
“You're laughing.” Yuri can feel Otabek smile against the shell of his ear. “Like you might be having a good time.”  
  
“No Fucking way,” Yuri responds. “No chance in hell.”  
  
The opening bars of a song Yuri's heard before on the radio starts up over the sound system.  
  
Otabek taps him lightly on the hips. “This one isn't bad.”  
  
Yuri immediately recognizes the opening chords of soft acoustic guitar. This was Otabek’s first fucking CD when they were kids. It cost twenty-five dollars, and his mother let him pick it out at the Book and Music Exchange for his eleventh birthday.  
  
I wanna hold the hand inside you  
I wanna take the breath that's true  
  
Otabek’s a fucking sucker for girl groups. It has something to do with Alina playing Liz Phair nonstop for a few solid months when they were younger. It has something to do with Alina paying an arm and a leg for a bootleg Shonen Knife tape. It has something to do with the jukebox at Sharkey’s, and grandpa pumping the machine full of quarters while they played pool. Patsy Kline and Dolly Parton, and maybe just maybe if the bar was almost empty, Diana Ross.  
  
“Okay.” Otabek sheds his suit jacket and spreads it across the back of a nearby folding chair. Otabek’s black suspenders pulled tight across his crisp white button down. The sight of it makes Yuri’s mouth go dry. Yuri wants to pop those silver little clips at the waist of Otabek’s pants.  
  
Yuri furrows his brow and grits his teeth. He hates things that he wants now, but have to wait for later.  
  
Otabek takes Yuri’s hand into his and leads him toward the dance floor. Some of the girls have long satiny gloves that come up past their elbows. Yuri doesn’t mind the way his hand looks in Otabek’s. He’s got chipped black nail polish with a coat of glitter on top on his nails, and it does look kind of cool. It would look cooler if he had grape soda colored gloves that went up to his elbows and were smooth against Otabek’s hand.  
  
The dance floor has largely cleared out. It’s an older song that no one really cares about anymore. Otabek’s palm is clammy moist against his own, which Yuri almost thinks is stupid. They’ve been fooling around for awhile now. They’ve gone all the way a couple of times. Unlike all of these couples that barely know each other, and won’t care to know each other, they know each other. Yuri knows the sound of Otabek’s footsteps in heavy boots. Yuri knows the rise and fall of Otabek’s breath when he’s sleeping.  
  
Yuri would think it was stupid that Otabek’s hands leaked like faucets, if he wasn’t slightly concerned that his heart was going to pound out of his chest. If he wasn’t concerned that he was going to stomp on Otabek’s freshly polished shoes, he’d taunt him.  
  
He’s pretty sure he feels just as nervous as Otabek.  
  
“Hey,” Yuri’s voice is unsteady. “How do we do this?”  
  
“You’re the dancer.” Otabek is wearing that slight grin that he keeps in his sock drawer buried underneath lots of mismatched socks, a crumpled pack of cigarettes, and all the playgirl magazines they’ve boosted from the corner store. Otabek holds his hand firm, and wraps his other hand around his waist. Otabek smells like barbasol, and cheap medicinal aftershave, with just a tinge of cologne and sweat from riding around in the car without air conditioning. Yuri wants to bury his face into Otabek’s shoulder. Doing so would hide the plum colored blush that he is certain has overtaken his face. It would also let him chase that addictive scent.  
  
Yuri feels the blood rush to his face. They sleep together every night. Why the fuck is he embarrassed? Is it the audience? Yuri is almost certain that if he took a moment to think and to feel, he’d feel the low burn of eyes upon him. Right now, the only eyes that matters are Otabek’s. They’re wide, and bright, and filled with a softness that Otabek doesn’t show easily. It comes out when his younger sister tries to read one of his AP Lit books. It comes out when Ami finally understands the way he’s explained a problem on her homework. It comes out on snow days when school is canceled, and he turns over and tells Yuri to come back to bed.  
  
Otabek steps forward. Yuri doesn’t budge. “Let me lead Yuri.”  
  
“Fine,” Otabek steps forward once more, and Yuri steps backward. There’s no need to be obstinate, but Yuri isn’t sold on Otabek leading. He’s already wearing a fucking dress. Step back, step left, step up. Repeat. It takes a large amount of energy and effort despite the simplicity of their steps. He and Otabek step on one another’s toes more often than not. Despite the unpleasant nature of it all, Otabek’s grin doesn’t budge.  
  
Yuri stops their movements briefly to pick a wedgie.  
  
“Sexy Plisetsky,” Otabek teases.  
  
Yuri leans in close to Otabek, and hides in the crook of his neck and the shell of his ear. “I can’t wait for you to rip these tights off of me.”  
  
Pressed against Otabek’s chest, Yuri can feel him gasp.  
  
Yuri pulls back ever so slightly. Otabek’s face is flushed red. His coy little smile has slacked into a loose and stupid looking grin. Yuri is pulled back in. Whether it’s the crush of Otabek’s hand splayed wide across his back, or the magnetic and dangerous pull of Otabek’s charm and his looks, Yuri isn’t sure. All that he is certain of is that he loves Otabek very, very much.  
  
Otabek tastes syrupy, like cisco red. His tongue probes gently, and asks a silent question that Yuri isn’t sure that he knows the answer to. Their hands unlatch and reconnect. Otabek’s hands squeeze the soft flesh of his ass. Yuri’s hands fly up to Otabek’s undercut. He scratches lightly at Otabek’s scalp and holds him close.  
  
Their lips part, they take shallow breaths that are not enough, and then they come back together, but not soon enough.  
  
Yuri grabs at the stretchy fabric of his suspenders, and tries to pull Otabek closer still despite the fact that their bodies are crushed together.  
  
Otabek is right, like fucking always. He is almost, kind of, basically having fun. Although, hiding a semi in this dress isn’t easy. Especially when it’s so easy, and so nice to drag it against Otabek’s thigh with each awkward shuffle of their feet. He can’t even be upset at himself for being like every other couple on the dance floor. Like every other girl who’s stuffed into heels and draped awkwardly over her boyfriend with the added height.  
  
He’s almost, kind of, basically having fun. Which of course meant things were about to get fucked.  
  
There’s a tap on his shoulder, hard and authoritative. Yuri knows it well from all the times he’s been caught sleeping in class, and sleeping in in school suspension, and sleeping in Saturday school. “The two of you are causing a scene.”  
  
As if on cue, the song ends. It’s replaced by another generic pop song. Too much autotune and too much base, and not a hit of soul.  
  
“Bullshit.”  
  
Otabek interjects with a strong warning, “Yuri,” which Yuri cannot heed.  
  
“Everyone else is doing the exact same thing.”  
  
Yuri doesn’t recognize the teacher from any of his prior classes, but the image of her short bobbed hair and her square little glasses, and her polka dot blouse was burned into the back of his mind for forever. “You’re in blatant violation of the school dress code.”  
  
“We’re not in school, bitch.”  
  
“Yuri, let’s just leave.”  
  
“No fucking way,” Yuri can’t even believe the words that spill out of his mouth. This dance was lame as fuck, but nobody took a goddamn thing from Otabek, even if that thing was Yuri stepping on his toes to a sappy girl song.  
  
“And as you were informed earlier Mr. Plisetsky, suspended students are not allowed at school functions.”

* * *

Otabek notices Yuri’s fingers twist into fists, and he makes a split second decision. He steps back into Yuri’s space, hoists the other boy over his shoulder, and ignores the protest kicks and punches that Yuri inflicts upon him. They that aren’t intended to hurt, but are intended to get him to drop Yuri right away.  
  
However, Otabek’s resolve is strong. He’s used to this kind of behavior. Last week he hauled Yuri out of the mall food court in a similar fashion. The week before, he all but dragged Yuri out of a house party when the police showed up.  
  
The long strand of pearls wrapped around Yuri’s neck bounce against his back as he awkwardly hauls Yuri out of the venue. It’s slow and and haphazard, and he almost unceremoniously dumps Yuri on his ass several times, but he doesn’t let go of his grasp on Yuri for a moment.  
  
Yuri yells alternating obscenities over the music. He’s almost certain that he’s got double middle fingers raised to anyone that will look or pay attention. That’s Yuri’s go to when he can’t throw blows.  
  
Once they get outside, Yuri’s insults turn to Otabek. “Someday I AM going to be fucking bigger than you Altin, and you won’t be able to fucking pull this kind of shit.” Yuri’s taller than him in the heels. It’s only a matter of time.  
  
Crossing the threshold out of the venue leaves Otabek vaguely aware that the music inside was loud. The outside noises: cars going by on the street, people talking and yelling and whooping in the parking lot over music piped out of car stereos. Every bit of it sounds like he’s got his head underwater.  
  
Now it’s Otabek’s turn to put on his best mean, not to be fucked with kind of look. All it will take is one wrong look from someone in the parking lot and Yuri will break free from his grasp and start throwing punches.  
  
After what feels like a cross-country campaign across the parking lot, Otabek sets Yuri down onto the trunk of the Impala as gently as he possibly can. Yuri all lace and silk and nylon allows his body to spill off of the trunk of the car as he gingerly slides off of the car and stands on heel clad feet. “I need a smoke,” he says simply.  
  
Otabek would agree. The way his heart pounds in his chest, and the blood races in his ears, says just as much.  
  
“Um...But my bag. Your jacket.”  
  
Otabek rolls his eyes. “Seriously?” he pants. He can feel sweat beading down his back and soaking through his shirt. He can feel it rolling off of his temples. He must look awful by now. Melted and sticky to the pavement.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Otabek begins the walk of shame back inside to retrieve their things.  
  
When he gets back to the car, Yuri’s already fished a butt out the ashtray and has it balanced precariously between his fingertips. He sips at it slowly, knowing that he can’t avoid the filter.  
  
Yuri’s got the car turned on in auxiliary mode, so that he can listen to the radio without having the engine on. Otabek can only assume that he’s jammed the rewind button and then rapidly hit play several times to get to the proper spot. Yuri stops it on the first song on side one. It's Yuri's favorite. Right now, it makes Otabek's stomach drop  
  
_Living in a jungle_  
_It ain't so hard_  
_Living in the city_  
_It will eat out, eat out your heart_  
  
Otabek first retrieves a smoke from his purse and hands it to Yuri. Then he finds the pink lighter with the Playboy bunny logo, the one that Yuri loves most of all and considers lucky, for no reason other than he likes the design. He flicks the lighter once, twice, and holds the flame for Yuri.  
  
Yuri leans into the flame with his whole body. Satin dress, black and glitter chipped nails, strand of pearls, and green glass eyes. It’s dark outside, and the car’s console lights aren’t on, but he thinks he sees for a moment, twin tear streams down Yuri’s face.  
  
_Baby I'm born too lose_  
_Oh baby I'm born too lose_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr at boxwineconfession.tumblr.com


	4. It's Not Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pls bear with the smidge of angst. Thx.

Otabek often does not know how to fix things between himself and Yuri. Yuri will see girls at his locker. There’s Kami who he considers to be his only friend other than Yuri. She will ask for his opinion on the history short answer exam. Or, one of his sisters’ friends, who ask for a ride home. Yuri will get upset and give him the silent treatment through lunch. Yuri will usually have the resolve to stay quiet during the ride home. Afterwards he won’t be able to take it. He’ll break the silence, and absolve himself from the fact that he was ever upset in the first place. “You don’t even like girls do you?”   
  
And Otabek will answer truthfully, “no.”   
  
Yuri turned the big red envelope with the university’s seal on it over and over again in his hands. He didn’t have to read it to know what it contained. Otabek reminded him, “it’s just in the city. Forty minutes in weekday traffic. I’ll commute.”   
  
Yuri couldn’t look at it. The envelope warped and crumpled in his grasp. “Until you want to go live in the dorms.”   
  
Otabek didn’t have to do much to remedy that situation. All the had to do was take the envelope from Yuri’s hands, open it, pull the acceptance letter away from the informational packet, and show Yuri just how much the on campus housing cost.   
  
Then of course there was the relentless and oppressive pressure of money. Although Nikolai told them that they were too young to squabble over gas money, and how much yellow tag dresses cost at goodwill, and whether or not it was okay for Yuri to offer his mother fives or tens out of his purse when she asked. His response was always of course, “she’ll just try to take it anyway.”   
  
This resolves itself with Yuri dropping makeup and clothes and discount groceries into his purse without paying, or Yuri sneaking into a pool hall, or Yuri working a double, or sometimes if things were really bad doing all three. Otabek hated those days most of all because he wouldn’t see Yuri at all, and when he did he was dead tired. Asleep before he even hit the mattress. On those nights, Otabek grows so lonely that it was difficult to stay upset at Yuri. So he simply crawls into bed with Yuri and hopes that the problem is gone in the morning. It often is.   
  
Otabek doesn’t know how to fix things between himself and Yuri at this very moment.  
  
“Are you hungry?” Of course Yuri is hungry. Yuri hasn’t eaten in a few hours. He can put away more food than anyone he’s ever seen, and retain his trim waistline. It’s disturbing and magnificent and fascinating all at once.   
  
“Not really,” Yuri mumbles. It’s clear that he’s trying to hide the whisper of sadness and the hint of tears from his voice.   
  
“Okay but,” Otabek starts the car. “If you were hungry, what would you want to eat?”   
  
“A tenderloin sandwich,” Yuri admits finally. “Fried mushrooms,” he continues.   
  
“Vanilla shake?” Otabek asks. He turns onto main street so he can get onto the state road, which goes right to their usual dinner spot.   
  
“Strawberry,” Yuri responds. “If I were hungry, which I’m not.”   
  
“Right.” Otabek responds. Otabek doesn’t know what to say, especially in times like this. Especially since Yuri put himself out there for him. He thought he knew what to do, but given Yuri’s cool response, maybe not.   
  
Otabek drove the car down to Zesto anyway and ordered all the things that Yuri said that he didn’t want, but specifically mentioned. Then, he took the back way down to the park. He parked the Impala sideways across all three parking spaces between the tennis court and the handball court. The lights from the courts make the fake clay floor look like eerie deserts straight from one of the B movies that Yuri always insist that they rent, and then talks through without fail.   
  
The food remains untouched on the dash. It’s a sign that all of this is far bigger than being asked to leave a school function. Whether it’s the happiest day of his life, or the most devastating, Yuri always wants to eat.   
  
All that matters, is he’s here with Yuri. Otabek knows that Yuri is concerned. About what he isn’t certain. Otabek has never had many friends other than Yuri. He’s not exactly excited about the prospect of meeting new people in classes, especially since he’s finally begun to feel comfortable with the few people in his advanced classes that aren’t awful. There are some that are like him. They wear clothes that are faded, or half uniforms to minimum wage jobs to class. They nod off while they take notes, and chug coffee and energy drinks as if a full night’s rest was impossible. They’re not easy to find, but they’re there in the back row where they can’t be caught sleeping.   
  
All that matters is that Yuri made the time and the effort to be with him. It wouldn’t matter if they went to prom tonight, or had just ended up parked down at the park in the first place. It’s more than he ever expected. If he had the skills to say it, seeing Alina do his makeup, and stealing glances through the cracked door at mom doing his hair, and hustling with Yuri to get his pearls was just as enjoyable as dancing with him if not moreso.  
  
Yuri says that he loves him all of the time. Yuri shows that he loves him all the time. He shows it when he buys a pint mint chocolate chip ice cream instead of two pints of cookie dough even though Yuri absolutely hates it. Yuri shows that he loves him when he finishes cooking dinner dinner, and instead of yelling into the next room that dinner is ready, Yuri just brings it to him. Yuri shows him that he loves him when he sits with him down in the basement, and makes him practice his trick shots over and over again offering suggestions each and every time. Yuri shows that he loves him often. Because of that, it’s upsetting that Otabek can’t do anything to fix it. It’s upsetting that Otabek doesn’t know how to show him, especially when Yuri shows him so effortlessly.   
  
Otabek put Victor and Yuuri’s antique lamp into the trunk of the car so that Yuri can slide closer to him on the bench seat, but he stays firmly glued into the passenger’s seat.   
  
The tape player makes a sharp pop noise indicating that it’s flipped over sides. Otabek looks down at the small plastic console wedged between the gear shift and the seat. There are several tapes down there. A lot of them were left over from when Alina drove the car. The Ramones, Wire, The Clash. These are the ones that Yuri likes the most. His dad’s prized Steve Winwood tape is lodged in there too. No need to bring that tape into the house since mom got him the CD. Then, there are two or three that didn’t belong to anyone else. They’re truly his own. Siouxie and the Banshees, and the Runaways, and Patti Smith, and the mix tape that Alina made for his “sixteenth and a half birthday” some arbitrary date when he got the keys to the car and she put a down payment on a 1990 Pontiac Sunbird with a patched vinyl top.  
  
Otabek reaches for that tape. It’s no longer in a case. The peeled label reads “Otabek’s Bonin’ Jamz,” and the title is punctuated on either side by a crude ballpoint pen drawing of a heart on one side and a penis on the other. Otabek has tried to peel the label away, but ultimately failed.   
  
In one fluid motion, Otabek pops Yuri’s tape out and inserts his own.   
  
“Hey!” It’s the first thing Yuri has said since the drive in.   
  
“We’ve listened to “Baby Talk” six times today Yuri.”  
  
“I fucking like that song.” Yuri angrily flips his cigarette out the window.   
  
“We can’t slow dance to Johnny Thunders Yuri.”   
  
Otabek is the one that yields this time. He scoots across the driver’s seat and into no man’s land territory. The liminal place between the passenger seat and the driver’s seat. The place that Yuri willingly wedges himself into for no reason other than to show Otabek that he loves him.   
  
Otabek thought that maybe this would be the best way to make up to Yuri what happened. Now, with one cheek balanced in the middle seat, and the other in the driver’s seat, and his legs wedged awkwardly in the space between the gearshift and where the pedals are, he realizes that this probably isn’t for Yuri at all.   
  
Yuri does so much for him.   
  
Yuri shoots him a look. It’s the kind of look that doesn’t say no, and it makes Otabek’s heart flutter at the mere insinuation of opportunity. “You still wanna fucking dance with me?”   
  
Otabek swallows the lump in his throat. It’s hard to verbalize what he felt less than an hour ago. Yuri looks so right tonight. Otabek has seen him in lacy tops, and little camisoles, and Alina’s hand me downs, and all kinds of strange “avant garde,” is what Yuri calls them, pieces that he’s stitched together from Alina’s hand me downs. Seeing Yuri tonight feels like the first time Otabek is ever really seeing Yuri.   
  
As much as Yuri teases him about being tense, Yuri is just the same. There are big photo albums in the closet downstairs and in them are photos of him and Yuri on field trips, where Yuri is scowling. There are school photos of Yuri where he’s tugging on the collars of his shirts. There are polaroids tacked to the wall in his room of Yuri looking absolutely sour. For as awkwardly as he shuffles around in the heels. For as frequently as he picks the nylons out of his ass, Yuri finally seems at ease. Correct somehow in a way that Otabek cannot describe.  
  
“Yeah,” Otabek hesitates. “I do.”   
  
Yuri snorts and shoots a suspicious glare to the cassette deck. “I’m not dancing to “Unchained Melody” Beka. This isn’t fucking Ghost, Otabek Altin Swayze.”   
  
Otabek playfully runs his fingers along the hem of Yuri’s skirt. Yuri has all but said yes. “I think Elvis is next.”   
  
“You fucking know Elvis is next Altin.” Yuri huffs. “You listen to this tape almost as much as I listen to Thunders.” Which is followed by a resigned, “alright.” Otabek gets his foot caught trying to move quickly out of the middle wedge seat to open his door. He scrambles around the hood, which goes on for miles and miles to open the door for Yuri. Yuri all but spills out.   
  
Otabek keeps both doors to the Impala open. He cranks up the stereo, and hopes that it isn’t enough to drain the battery. That would be awful, to have to call Alina, or mom, or heaven forbid Nikolai all the way out here to come give them a jump.   
  
“You’re kind of a sap, Altin.” Yuri’s sour expression has all but melted away into a grin. It’s the kind of grin that Yuri only gives to Peaches when he thinks that he’s alone with the cat. It’s the kind that he gives to Nikolai on his birthday, and Nikolai’s outdone himself, but only when Nikolai’s back is turned. Otabek would sell his soul for that smile, if he wasn’t convinced that he’d done it years ago before he could even understand what it meant to have a soul or what it meant to be in love.   
  
Otabek leads Yuri by the elbow, past the parking spaces. He carefully opens the chain link door, which blends into the tall chain link fence that surrounds the tennis court. Otabek can only assume that the fake clay is a bit smoother than the sidewalk. Here, Yuri is less likely to roll his ankle.  
  
The song finally changes over. The piano melody is soft at first, and is then accented by the soft sound of bells. When he sees Yuri not by the sporadic light of the strobe, but in the eerie yellow spotlight, he knows that this is better. More them. More Otabek and Yuri, less everyone else.   
  
Yuri falls into his arms easily this time. Otabek moves his feet, and Yuri mirrors his movements in reverse. “Okay with letting me lead?”   
  
“Yeah,” Yuri says breathily into his shoulder.   


_ Wise men say only fools rush in _

_ But I can't help falling in love with you _

They get a few steps in before Yuri stumbles over his own toes. Despite the spotlights, and the brand new sign from the side of the road, the park is woefully deteriorated. The false clay court is cracked, and weeds grow up through the cracks and vine outward as if they’re removing a piece of clothing that’s far too small. “You should take those off,” Otabek mouths against the shell of his ear.   
  
“You just wanna milk the time you have left,” Yuri’s grown over an inch this year alone. There’s no doubt in his mind that Yuri will surpass him in height very soon.   
_  
_ “Not if you keep smoking so much,” Otabek chuckles. __  


_ Shall I stay _

_ Would it be a sin _

_ If I can't help falling in love with you _

“Whatever,” Yuri steps out of one shoe, braces himself on Otabek’s shoulders, and then steps out of the other. “You’re still lancing my blisters later.” Yuri worms his hands underneath the suit jacket. “Lose the jacket.” 

Otabek complies, and sets it gently on Yuri’s shoes. 

_ Like a river flows surely to the sea _

_ Darling so it goes _

_ Some things are meant to be _

It’s even easier this time to fall back into step. Yuri leans the side of his face against Otabek’s shoulder. In this position, Otabek can catch the faint whiff perfume on him. It’s musky, and floral, and he knows that it came from the bottle with the glass stopper on the top of his own mother’s dresser, but it  _ smells _ so different and so impossibly good on Yuri. 

_ Take my hand, take my whole life too _

_ For I can't help falling in love with you _

Yuri would say that he was being sappy if he commented on the music. If he told him that he truly believed they were meant to be together. Otabek goes for an option that’s equally likely to evoke a visceral reaction from Yuri. “You pop a stiffy earlier Plisetsky?”

Yuri would say that he was being sappy if he commented on the music. If he told him that he truly believed they were meant to be together. Otabek goes for an option that’s equally likely to evoke a visceral reaction from Yuri. “You pop a stiffy earlier Plisetsky?”   
  
That earns him a slap on the arm. Then, as if nothing happened at all, Yuri’s pulling away and looking at him with half-lidded eyes. Yuri wriggles a hand between his suspender and his shirt. Between dancing, and carrying Yuri, and a thousand other little things, it must be quite wrinkled by now.   
  
“Do you love me Yuri?”   
  
“No,” Yuri is practically beaming.   
  
“Oh.” Otabek says dryly. “That’s a shame cause-” Yuri interrupts him with a kiss. It’s a barely there flutter of lips against lips, and tongue against lips, and half sigh against Otabek’s mouth and then Yuri’s gone once more.   
  
“You were saying something Altin?”   
  
Otabek feels like the weight of the world has been lifted off of his shoulders when Yuri smiles at him like this. He often feels starved for a sign that he’s doing something right with Yuri. So these outward and direct signs of approval must be held onto like rare, but unpolished gemstones. “Love you Plisetsky,” and then it’s Otabek’s turn to steal a kiss.   
  
Yuri rebuffs him right away. Long elegant fingers glide between his lips and Yuri’s. Otabek furrows his brow in frustration.   
  
“Love you too Altin,” he says nonchalantly before he lowers his fingers.   
  
Yuri tastes like bitter tobacco smoke. But the taste doesn’t negate how soft, and how pliant feels against him. Yuri melts into him. His satiny dress seeps across his clothes and pools around both of them like the thick syrupy Cisco that Yuri had earlier.   
  
Yuri’s body tends to run cold. Yuri is the first to lose the feeling in his fingers when they play outside in the snow. He’s the first to turn on the heater much to Nikolai’s dismay. He’s the first to reach for more blankets and pull Otabek close at night when the air is crisp. Yuri feels as if he’s burning alive beneath his touch.   
  
“I’m tired of dancing,” Yuri decides while Otabek has latched onto Yuri’s ear. There’s not much dancing going on. Just slow half-grind, half-sway movements of their hips together. Otabek decides that he very much like the way Yuri’s body feels in the dress. There are parts, around his chest and at the flare of hips, that are skin tight. Other parts, past his hips and around his ass, the fabric is loose. Otabek has to grab fistfuls of fabric to find what he wants. It only provides a fraction of what he needs. “Acting foolish in front of other people,” he says in regards to prom. “Dancing all night,” because if given the chance, Yuri would’ve dropped it as soon as they left the dance hall. “Trying to act normal.” Otabek isn’t sure what this is about. They’re as normal as they can possibly be.   
  
Yuri pulls away from his vice like grasp. Otabek had been indulging himself in the satin covered skin of Yuri’s ass. “Otabek,” his voice is gruff. “You promised me the back seat before we even left.”   
  
Otabek remembers telling Yuri so much when they first wedged Victor and Yuri’s lamp in between them in the front seat. “Grab your shoes?”   
  
Yuri complies.   
  
“My jacket too?”  
  
“Fuckin lazy,” Yuri murmurs under his breath.   
  
Before he can fight back, Otabek hoists him up onto his shoulder once more. The walk to the car is less tumultuous than their hasty retreat from the dance earlier, even when the cracks in the pavement are accounted for.   
  
“Fucking caveman. Asshole. Fucking asshole.” But Yuri doesn’t kick or fidget.   
  
Otabek deposits Yuri into the backseat as gently as possible, which is to say not so graceful at all. His hands are full and it’s hard to get the door open. “You wanted me to rip those tights off?”   
  
“Oh fuck yeah.” Yuri spreads his legs wide for Otabek. The dress has layer after layer of crinoline underneath, making it impossible to see Yuri’s underwear, let alone the outline of his cock. The pantyhose are too dark for his skin. They’re a light cocoa color that clashes beautifully with Yuri’s pale skin. The fluorescent spotlights hit Yuri’s skin and the green of his eyes just right, making him look like a captured apparition in black and purple satin. In movies and magazines pretty girls are supposed to look a certain way at prom. Except, Yuri looks nothing like that. He looks better.  
  
The whole car smells like cigarette smoke, and cheap booze, and fried food. “I thought I was going to gag with all that romantic bullshit.”   
  
Otabek’s only response is to dive into the crinolines of Yuri’s skirt. He grabs at the thin nylon fabric and doesn’t relent until the whole cabin of the car is filled with a sharp ripping sound. It’s pitch black underneath Yuri’s skirt. Otabek’s hands move awkwardly to wherever he can find skin. Otabek pulls his underwear down, but with the tights only torn at the crotch, it’s awkward, and they bunch up mid thigh.   
  
Otabek doesn’t care. He slips the head of Yuri’s cock into his mouth without warning or preamble, and hollows his cheeks.  
  
“Beka,” Yuri whines from above. After a few soft moans Yuri continues, “I’m not coming like this.” Yuri slaps his back lightly. There’s no bite in the protest, only slight bit of disappointment that Yuri always expresses when sex doesn’t go exactly as planned.   
  
Otabek is the one that carries Yuri to the back seat. Otabek is the one that pushes Yuri onto the mattress. Otabek is the one that preps Yuri. In their relationship, it’s Otabek that holds Yuri’s hips and presses in slowly, but he holds no delusions. Yuri calls the shots.   
  
It doesn’t stop Otabek from taking Yuri into his mouth as far as he possibly can. Then, he works down Yuri’s cock slowly. Takes a few scant seconds to relax. Then he works Yuri with his mouth. Hollowing his cheeks he takes Yuri in and out several times.   
  
Only, after Yuri is panting, and moaning, and twisting at him through his dress does Otabek resurface from the crinolines.   
  
“Beka,” Yuri pulls at the fabric of his suspenders. “Please.” Yuri pulls him in or a kiss. It’s open mouthed, and sloppy. Just the kind that Yuri likes to give. His voice slides from needy to sultry within a single breath. “I was serious.”   
  
Otabek pushes him so that he’s laying on his back on the back seat. “You want to?”   
  
“Yeah,” Yuri breathes in response. “All the way.”   
  
“I don’t have anything.”   
  
“Not even a condom?” Yuri asks Otabek.   
  
“Ah, no remember?” He’d snuck out of the house a few days ago to go to Yuri’s house. They’d used it then. “Do you have anything in your bag?” Yuri kept all sorts of amazing things in his purse. Packets of tissues, spare change, fruit snacks, gum, a near endless stream of cigarettes, and little tiny bottles of booze.   
  
“No,” Yuri responds. “Just go slow. You’re good at that.”   
  
Slow. Otabek decides that he can do that. Otabek moves for the zipper on Yuri’s dress. Pulls it down across the length of his back. Then, he waits for Yuri to work himself out of the arm holes. He dare not remove the skirt all the way.   
  
“This is a lot of trouble,” Yuri huffs as he bunches the skirt upward so that Otabek can remove his tights and underwear.   
  
Then, Otabek presses his fingers against Yuri’s mouth. “We need something.” he explains.   
  
Yuri swallows them immediately. He does his absolute best to coat the digits working his tounge in between each finger and taking them deep into his mouth like it’s Otabek’s cock.   
  
When Otabek dees them sufficiently damp, he leverages his body over Yuri’s once again, and pushes him into the seat. Otabek works his first finger in with minimal resistance. The second, despite how hard Yuri grinds against the single digit, doesn’t slide in so easily. Yuri’s spit alone is not enough.   
  
“Now Otabek,” but Otabek feels the pressure of Yuri around his fingers.   
  
“Not yet.” Otabek shifts them once again. Pulls Yuri forward by his shoulders. “Get it wet.”   
  
Yuri pushes the suspenders the rest of the way down Otabek’s shoulders. Then, he frees his cock from his pants.   
  
Yuri doesn’t even bother with an antagonistic response. He moves to a crouching position on the bench seat, and bends at the waist. Otabek’s cock is immediately enveloped into the impossibly wet heat of Yuri’s mouth. The voluminous fabric of the skirt pools around either side of Yuri, and spills into every inch of unoccupied space in the back seat.   
  
However, Yuri does not waste time. Yuri moves his tongue and his lips purposefully. Otabek can feel drool slide down his cock and pool at the base. Yuri swallows Otabek all the way down. Otabek can feel his throat constrict around him.   
  
Yuri pulls off of him in one smooth motion that almost hides the fact that he’d been trying to stifle a gag. “You’re ready now,” his voice is husky and raw from taking all of Otabek all at once.   
  
Trapped in the confines of the dress, Yuri is much more passive than normal. Otabek is able to push him back down onto the backseat. Yuri can do little more than wrap his legs around his waist, and hold the skirt up high so that it spills across his chest.   
  
It’s not ideal. Otabek would much rather have Yuri naked. He’d much rather feel every inch of satiny skin, instead of satiny cloth.   
  
Despite this, Otabek can taste the want and the need between them thick in the air. They have only done this a handful of times, but there’s something magnetic and electric between them that guides them both through the motions. Otabek grabs Yuri’s hips and pulls him closer. The other hand goes base of his cock.   
  
Otabek slides in slowly. They haven’t done this much, but they have done it enough to know that spit alone is not enough.   
  
“Fuck!” Yuri’s bottom lip trembles. Caught between his teeth, Otabek fears that he’ll worry it raw. Yuri worrying his lip. Yuri’s furrowed brow, combined with the fact that the friction is much more intense than usual. Yuri feels rough in the best kind of way. It’s difficult to remember that he needs to protect Yuri, even if that means he’s protecting Yuri from himself.   
  
Yuri pays no heed to his body. He grinds against Otabek hypnotically slow circles.  
  
“Yuri.”   
  
“It-” Yuri chokes back a whine. “It’s fine.”   
  
“It’s not fine.”   
  
“It’s fine Otabek!” Yuri says through growled teeth. Yuri works himself up Otabek’s cock, only to slide down. He repeats this motion a few more times, until Yuri stills. Otabek can see the pinprick teardrops in his eyes. He can see just how red and puffy his lip is. “It will feel good if I can work through it.”   
  
Otabek doesn’t move. Yuri works himself in slow circles on his cock. Otabek reaches for Yuri’s cock. It rests soft and disinterested between his legs.   
  
Yuri clutches at Otabek’s chest. His nails dig into the skin and leave red inflamed half moon marks in their wake.   
  
Otabek remains stock still. Yuri, even with minimal prep is always warmth, and wet, and addictive.   


“Okay,” Yuri says finally with his eye screwed shut. The shallow ruts against Otabek have stopped. “Maybe it isn’t fine.”   
  
It takes a great deal of control to not flat out ask Yuri why he did this to himself. Otabek wasn’t the kind of person who “needed” to go all the way. He would’ve much rather blown Yuri between his skirts, than make him cry.   
  
Otabek pulls out slowly, as to avoid causing Yuri more pain.   
  
Yuri pushes his skirt down over his cock with a huff. “‘M sorry.”   
  
“Don’t be,” Otabek responds. “We’ll go to the drug store.”   
  
Yuri just lounges in the back seat for awhile half dressed and smoking cigarettes. Eventually, he pulls his underwear back on. He picks over his melted milkshake. Then, he steps out of the car in little more than his underwear and pulls his dress back up over his shoulders. He doesn’t move for the zipper, nor does he ask Otabek for help with it.   
  
Yuri settles back into the front seat with an unzipped dress, and makes quick work of the greasy paper bag which contained their food. Otabek takes this as his cue to climb back into the front seat.   
  
“You mad?” Yuri says in between ravenous bitefuls of a pork tenderloin that is the size of his face. It’s slathered in mustard, pickles, and onion. As soon as he comes up for air, he reaches for a fistfull of fried mushrooms. Otabek is glad that he ordered an extra large, he might get one out of the grease stained bag.   
  
It’s surprising really, that Yuri invites this conversation. Especially after two things in a row have promptly gone south.   
  
“At you?” Otabek doesn’t skip a beat. “No. At them?” Otabek nibbles on his own food gingerly. “Very.” But the fact of the matter is, there isn’t anything that can be done.”I’m still surprised you wanted to go.” Otabek takes a long pull from his own milkshake. He hopes that it doesn’t come off as an afterthought when he says, “Thank you.”   
  
Yuri takes a huge bite of his tenderloin. He chews a few times, and then tries to swallow. This results in Yuri choking, and coughing until his face is read and there are tears in his eyes. Otabek can do little else other than slap his back between his shoulders, the palm of his hand catches on the undone zipper. Then, he offers Yuri a bit of shake.  
  
“Thanks,” Yuri says when he catches his breath.   
  
Yuri continues to pick at the food. He takes a few bites of his sandwich, then the mushrooms, and then the french fries. He cracks a beer sometime after his shake is finished. “Why did I go?” he asks finally. “I’m fucking scared Beka.”   
  
There’s no hint of venom in his voice. No teasing. No gruffness. No scraped raw tremble of vulnerability either. The lack of any discernable emotion in his voice scares Otabek most of all.   
  
“Like I know that you’re staying here. I know that you still love me. But it feels like we can’t win.”   
  
“What do you mean?”   
  
“People who fall for each other in high school never work out,” Yuri says. Emotion creeps back into his voice. It’s quiet and exposed, and shaken vulnerable. “If they do, they just end up hating each other years down the road. After they marry, or buy a house, or have a mess of nasty ass kids. They cheat, or they gain weight, or they figure out that all the little things that they liked about each other are actually fucking annoying.”   
  
“Yuri.” There isn’t anything else that can be said.   
  
Yuri lights up a cigarette. He trades his shake out for a beer. Then, he meets Otabek’s gaze. One that is clouded and dizzy with something almost like tears. Yuri doesn’t have to talk like this. “Otabek. I don’t actually want to believe that. Even though I see it all the time.”   
  
It’s hard not to see around here. His parents, and Yuuko and Takeshi Nishigori seemed to be the successful stories. Ami said she was gonna marry the guy that knocked her up when she was old enough, and Otabek hoped that wasn’t true. There were countless other people that they heard about through gossip that streamed constantly between the people here. Divorces at twenty, or worse still people who had been married for twenty years and didn’t speak to one another.   
  
Otabek shakes the last cigarette from the pack. Yuri strikes the lighter, and Otabek leans into it. Then, he shoves the key into the ignition. The engine starts with the same series of noises that his father falls into the chair after a long day of work: groans and growls and a certain kind of pleading.   
  
Yuri pops his tape out and puts the tape from before back in. 

_ You can give me this  _

_ You can give me that _

_ It's not enough _

“We’re not like that Yuri.” Otabek jams his key into the ignition. The car starts on the first go. He’s not sure where they’re going, and he’s not sure that he cares. “I’ll show you.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr dot com. boxwineconfession.tumblr.com


	5. All By Myself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More fail sex, minimal angst, happy endings in store.

_I don't need no wedding hall_   
_I just watch your rollerball_   
_Forget your friends and what they do_   
_I got to get inside of you_   
_All by myself_

Otabek speeds through a yellow light at the corner of Columbia and Mary Street. He goes down past the hospital, and the row of vacant houses. Stratman’s pharmacy is on Harriet street, and they’re going to have to go fast if they’re going to get there before they close at 10:00. Of course Sandleben’s is open until eleven because it’s near the private college in town, but Otabek doesn’t like that one. They don’t sell condoms to him, and he feels like it has something to do with Yuri. Whether it’s because he’s simply with Yuri, or because Yuri always walks out with pockets filled with saltwater taffy that he did not pay for Otabek will never know. He doesn’t care.   
  
Otabek does quick mental calculations. With Yuri having the money, it’s hard to tell how much is left. The necklace had eighty on it. The food was fifteen. They’re gonna need another pack of cigarettes. If they go back to Yuri’s house there is lotion, and lotion is free. But, since he needs to buy cigarettes anyway, he resigns himself to picking up lube and condoms. Otabek pulls the heap of the Impala into the parking lot at the stroke of 9:50. He opens his door, and Yuri hands him a crumpled mess of bills from his purse. “Not coming in?”   
  
“No.” Yuri decides. “Menthols?”   
  
Otabek grimaces. “Fine.”   
  
Going into Stratman’s at night feels like walking into a giant refrigerator. The air conditioning is always blasting regardless of the season. The lights flicker in a sickly yellow hue. Everything in the store looks like a dish to be rifled through, however; the contents are always unappetizing. Otabek marches up to the counter with the silent kind of confidence that has taken all of eighteen years to muster. He wouldn’t have a shred of it if Yuri didn’t push him. Cigarettes, lube, and condoms cost him seventeen dollars and eighty-seven cents, plus a look of suspicion from the clerk. It’s the kind of look that makes him wish he had Yuri, heels and all draped across his arm.   
  
Otabek exits the pharmacy escorted only by the soft pneumatic whoosh of the automatic doors. He slings the plastic bag over his shoulder. What he sees upon leaving the pharmacy takes his breath away in the same way that getting punched in the stomach does.   
  
Yuri sits on the trunk of the impala, smoking of course. His dress is still unzipped, halfway down the back so his back and shoulders are exposed. His bare toes rest against the oxidized chrome bumper. Yuri looks across the street with rapt fascination.   
  
Stratman’s is just across the street from a huge discount store. He and Yuri have spent so much time and so much money there picking up groceries, and eighty nine cent bottles of VO5 with dented caps, and acrid AIM toothpaste, and sponge rollers, and packages of socks. Every summer, for what feels like weeks but cannot be more than a handful of days, a carnival springs up from the cracks in the pavement and the puddles in the parking lot.   
  
Yuri looks at it intently. The reflections from the flashing bulbs which outline the rides glimmer against his skin. Make his green eyes turn hazel, or blue depending on how they flicker. Yuri is slack jawed, and open mouthed. His hand rests on his chin, and he watches from across the street as impossibly small children attempt to lower themselves off of carousel horses.   
  
Otabek joins Yuri at the trunk of the Impala. With a hand that no longer trembles with uncertainty, he moves Yuri’s hair out of the way, and zips the dress the rest of the way up. “What’s that for?” Yuri says in a tired and almost disinterested tone. “If we’re going home?”  
  
“I’m going to show you.” Otabek insists as he stows the bag inside the front seat of the car, and grabs Yuri’s purse. Otabek wonders if he should make Yuri bother with his shoes. He decides against it. It’s Yuri’s choice. They wait for one car to drive by too fast, and then another going painfully slow.  
  
“Shoulda went,” Yuri notes as they wait for it to crawl past.  
  
“Hm,” Otabek agrees.   
  
They cross the street and into the carnival grounds. The lights, the sounds, and the smells are all nothing short of unpleasant for Otabek, but he knows that Yuri must’ve felt the same about prom.   
  
“So, doing stuff you hate?” Yuri’s mouth twists into a pained smile. It’s almost the kind that he gives Inna when Yuri has to pull her in from off the porch, or take the keys to the buick and go pick her up even though he does not have a license.   
  
Otabek shoots him a questioning look.   
  
“Doing stuff we don’t wanna do? That’s how we make it work?” Yuri sucks in his breath as if he’s uncertain. “Sounds like a great way to hate each other.”   
  
“I like it when you’re happy.”

* * *

Yuri knows for a fact that it is in Otabek’s nature to try to “fix” things. Otabek knows how to fix all kinds of things. His dad taught him how to work on cars, and washing machines, and lawn mowers, and broken hot water heaters. His mom taught him how to resew cloths that were already threadbare.   
  
Yuri doesn’t know how to fix anything to save his goddamn life. From grandpa he learned how to take things apart and let them rot on his workbench. From his mother, he learned how to scream at things in a blind fury until he gave up.   
  
Yuri doesn’t know how to fix a goddamn thing, however he feels like Otabek can’t “fix” this by dragging him to a carnival.   
  
But Yuri’s ready to be proven wrong.   
  
Otabek holds on to his hand with a too tight grasp. “Can I spend some of the money?”   
  
“How much do we have left?”   
  
“About forty.”   
  
“Okay.” He knows that Otabek won’t spend all of it. They’ll need a little for gas, and it’s always good to have a little extra for things like cigarettes or food.   
  
Otabek leads them past cotton candy stalls, funnel cake trucks, and corn dog stands. Yuri’s still stuffed full from earlier, but the smell of fried food makes his mouth water. The combined too full, appetite feeling makes him feel queasy.   
  
Otabek has this talent. Where Yuri sticks out, and causes a scene, Otabek blends in. He’s able to move them through the crowds of people without bumping into anyone. People part for them easily, as if they aren’t even there at all.   
  
He takes Yuri past games where mice run on spinning wheels, and rows and rows of goldfish float listlessly in brightly colored water, and further still past the water gun games.   
  
“Otabek,” Yuri’s voice sounds like sandpaper. He’s smoked more than he usually does in a few days, and he’s cried more than he’d like to cry in an entire lifetime. “You know that these things are rigged.”   
  
“Yeah but,” Otabek stops in front of one of the many stalls that are unidentifiable from one another. The prizes stick out in perfect lines: bears, unicorns, dogs, and tigers. This one’s defining feature are rows and rows of balloons. “I’m really good at this.”   
  
It’s easy enough for Yuri to see what’s going on here. Bust the balloon with a dart and win the prize. Of course the darts are too light, the tips are dull as a bowling ball. But here’s the thing, Otabek is amazing at darts. Whenever they were kids, and they had the run of the bar before it opened, Otabek would divide his time equally between darts and pool.   
  
Yuri was okay at darts, but Otabek was something else. He had sharp eyes and a steady hand. But Yuri had those too. What Otabek was really good at, was doing the mental arithmetic needed to hit the board just right, and get the points he needed in the correct order. Yuri loved watching him throw with quick flicks of the wrist.   
  
They watch several couples older than them, maybe even out of high school already, try the game. The men always throw dead on and miss. The darts are so dull that most of the tips bounce right off. It’s sad how they keep throwing their money down and getting nothing in return.   
  
“Got it?”   
  
“Hm.” Otabek says after a few moments of concentrated silence. Otabek moves toward the stall, and exchanges a five for several darts. Otabek holds his arm high, and shoots at a downward angle. Hits the part of the woefully underinflated balloon in the middle at the place where it looks like it has the most air.   
  
The first balloon bursts with a sharp pop. Then the second, and then the third. Otabek misses the fourth, but finishes strong on the fifth.   
  
The proprietor leans over the railing from the inside of the booth by propping his leg up on the very ledge that Otabek stands near. “If you do that again, you can get her one of the big ones.” Then, he breaks his gaze with Otabek, and shoots Yuri a wink which is accompanied by a large, almost scary toothless grin. Yuri knows that Otabek knows that this is all part of the show. Call him a girl in a nice kind of way, and get more of their money.   
  
However, Yuri cannot contain his cynicism or excitement. He knows that it’s fucking rigged and the odds are against him, but he secretly loves this kind of thing. He’s probably giving Otabek the biggest, stupidest kind of grin right now.   
  
Otabek is forking over another five, and busts all five balloons in rapid succession: red, blue, pink, and blue again.   
  
Otabek touchs him lightly on the shoulder. In that simple touch, Yuri can feel pride, and smugness, and simple undiluted joy all rolled into one. Yuri selects a large white tiger plush.   
  
“How long until Peaches shreds it?” Otabek asks.   
  
Yuri struggles to hold onto the toy. He’ll win him this giant unwieldy thing, but won’t carry it for him. Probably thinks that it looks uncool. Asshole. “I give it a month, just Peaches. With the rest of the assholes, maybe two weeks.”   
  
“What next?”   
  
“I don’t fucking know. You’re the one who dragged me over here without shoes on.” Which means it’s in Otabek’s vested interest that he carry the stupid stuffed animal, or else he’ll step in melted ice cream, or glass, or vomit.   
  
“I’m not a mind reader Plisetsky.”   
  
“Fucking carry this,” he shoves the stuffed tiger at Otabek.   
  
Otabek accepts it immediately. “We could put it in the car?”   
  
Yuri chews it over for a moment, it was just across the street. Otabek jostles the stuffed animal from arm to the other awkwardly. He reaches for his wallet, and thrusts it toward Yuri. “And if you happened to stumble upon some tickets. Well, we’d have to use them right?”   
  
“Yeah,” Yuri stammers in response. “But uh, nothing too crazy. I ate a lot and don’t wanna barf all over you.”   
  
Otabek’s mouth curls into a small, almost hidden smile. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Something slow.”

* * *

Otabek returns from the car to find Yuri at the ticket booth. “Uh, I think,” he counts the tickets in his hand. “We only have enough for the big wheel.” Yuri’s dedication to the whole unspoken charade is admirable. Normally, he’d tell him to cut it out, and deny himself the indulgence.   
  
Yuri is strict with himself like that. He rarely does exactly what he wants. When he does it’s wrapped around something that he does not want to do to counter whatever kind of positive effect that it might have. Dressing up was only allowed for going to prom, which Yuri did not want to do. Going to the carnival was allowed, but only if it was Otabek’s idea. Otabek understands this well. He would’ve never asked Yuri to go to a dance with him.   
  
Otabek takes Yuri by the arm, and leads him over to the ferris wheel. The line is short, and he and Yuri are seated right away. The cart wobbles while they try to get in, despite the attendant trying to hold it firm. Otabek offers his hand to Yuri, and Yuri accepts it. Then Otabek climbs in, making the cart shake once more under the added weight. The attendant throws the gate across their stomachs, and the wheel jerks backwards with a pneumatic wheeze. Otabek decides that if Yuri can indulge himself here, so can he. He sits with one arm across Yuri’s shoulders. With his other, he grabs Yuri’s hand.   
  
“So you’re showing me?”  
  
Otabek doesn’t respond right away. There’s no right answer to the question. Yuri often asks these kinds of things when he is trying to think something through.   
  
“Dunno if time a at a crappy carnival exactly fixes it.”   
  
“No.” Otabek agrees. The wheel jerks backwards again, and then creeks to a halt leaving them stranded at the very top of the wheel. From here, they can see the entire carnival in neon lights of orange, pink, red, and blue. They can see throngs of people blended together as one giant and amorphous puddle that fills in the spaces between rides and stalls. They can see the discount store in the distance, and the row of houses beyond there. “I think that will take time.”   
  
“Wait.” Yuri furrows his brow and squeezes onto his hand. “It takes time to show me, but it also takes time to realize if we’re fucked?”   
  
“Hm.” There’s no denying Yuri’s logic. It’s a strange thing. At the same time, there’s no quick and easy way to say that they would be together forever, and happy through all of it. “I think so?” He’s not sure.   
  
The wheel lurches forward once more, and Otabek and Yuri begin their first continuous journey around the wheel. Cresting the highest point, Yuri holds tight to his arm. When they reach the bottom, he relaxes, only to repeat the process when they reach the apex of the wheel once more.   
  
“Kay,” and then Yuri snuggles up to him. Leans his head onto his shoulder, and whispers into his ear, “this is kind of nice though isn’t it?”   
  
Otabek traces slow and lazy circles onto Yuri’s hand with his thumb. He doesn’t respond. Instead, he simply enjoys the feeling of Yuri pressed next to him. Finally, he speaks. “Want to know what I got at the drugstore?”   
  
“Cigarettes,” Yuri guesses.   
  
“Hm,” Otabek responds.   
  
“Menthols hopefully.”   
  
“Yeah,” Otabek responds.   
  
“Uh.” The wheel reaches its nadir, and Yuri finds the courage to somehow press himself closer against Otabek. He whispers in his ear. “Condoms?”   
  
Yuri’s voice makes the hair stand up against the back of his neck. “Yeah. Something else too.”   
  
“Lube too?” There's a hint of surprise in Yuri’s voice. It was usually one or the other.  
  
“Yeah.”   
  
As if on cue, the wheel grinds to a halt once more. They’re stuck at the very top again. The mood, tangibly different despite the familiar position and location.   
  
“We going home after this?” But Yuri doesn’t give him the time to respond. He tilts Otabek’s chin just right, and slots their lips together, just right. The kiss is soft, and simple. Yuri doesn’t force his tongue down Otabek’s throat immediately, nor does he try to bruise Otabek’s mouth with it’s intensity. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the kiss grabs him up by the lapels of his shirt and knocks the wind out of him.   
  
“Yeah,” Otabek barely manages to choke out. 

* * *

Otabek almost crashes the car several times on the way home. First he stops short at a red light behind a big blue Cadillac with a busted tail light. Then, he swerves into the other lane when he makes the turn off the highway. Yuri doesn’t know why. Maybe traffic is bad. Maybe, even though it’s before midnight, the drunk drivers are already out.   
  
Yuri doesn’t know why, because he kept his face buried in the crook of Otabek’s neck the entire drive home. Of course he does all the things that he knows that Otabek normally likes: soft teasing bites followed by harder presses off the teeth that leave marks. He also mirrors the action on Otabek’s earlobe.   
  
He and Otabek are gonna have the most amazing sex ever. He can tell, cause Otabek’s already got a huge hard on, and Yuri’s done nothing other than grind his palm against Otabek’s crotch.   
  
Otabek finally pulls into the driveway. Mom’s Buick is pulled outside of the garage.   
  
Otabek sighs and leans over the steering wheel. “What now?”   
  
“She was passed out earlier,” Yuri grunts. He’s honestly surprised she’s still here. “We’ll just sneak around the back and go in the basement door.”  
  
Yuri pops the tape from the deck, grabs his shoes, and his bag, and the pharmacy bag. He makes Otabek corall the rest of the beer, which has been shaken out of the little plastic rings which hold them together. He also makes him carry in the tiger. Which totally hasn’t named yet. Not that Jean Claude isn’t a bitchin’ fucking name for a tiger or anything.   
  
They dart across the yard and make the descent to the basement door. It’s lined with cinderblocks and moss, and mostly just fills up with stagnant water. Much like the giant cavernous mouth of Lilia’s pawn shop, Yuri is afraid of this space too. It’s too dark, and it’s too easy for something to pop out and grab them.  
  
Yuri throws everything onto the floor as soon as they’re inside and leaps into Otabek’s arms.   
  
Otabek responds just the way he wanted him to: hungry and needy. Gone is the stone faced man that Yuri fucked with relentlessly in the car. Instead he gets an Otabek that takes what he wants, and gives Yuri exactly what he needs. Otabek kisses back with a brazen intensity that makes Yuri’s knees knock together.   
  
There are voices upstairs.   
  
Otabek palms his cock through the satin of his dress as they awkwardly move toward across the carpeted floor. All too soon, Yuri can feel his hip bumping against furniture, and Otabek’s hand softly blocking the impact.   
  
Yuri looks downward. Otabek has backed him into the pool table. It’s a good choice. God they’re going to have like, the best sex. No one is gonna fall off the side of the couch, and no one is gonna get rug burn on the carpet, and it’s going to be so clean and so smooth since Otabek went to the store.  
  
  
And tonight it’s gonna go so fucking right. Yuri just knows it. So fucking right that he ignores the sound of stomping upstairs. He totally blocks out the sound of voices directly above. There’s no reason to be concerned. They aren’t yelling, and Yuri certainly doesn’t let the word yet creep into his brain.   
  
Otabek pulls his mouth away from what feels like a very red very deep mark on his neck. His hand stays on Yuri’s dick though, so he’ll forgive the transgression.   
  
“What is it?” Otabek has got to be used to the noises by now too. He’s spent almost as many nights as Yuri has at this point listening to mama yell, and grandpa struggle to keep his voice down.   
  
“I just wanna look at you again. Before I take this thing off.”   
  
“Damnit Altin. You can’t just say shit like that.   
  
Upstairs there’s the sound of a door slamming, and then it goes silent. It makes Yuri breath a sigh of relief against Otabek’s shoulder.   
  
“You can keep it on.”   
  
But Yuri feels a strong hand at his back. Tooth by tooth he can feel the zipper being undone.   
  
“And miss all of this?” Otabek jams a hand down his back, and pushes the sleeve down on the right side. “Not a chance Plisetsky.” Otabek pushes the dress down around his chest, and then pulls it deftly over his hips. With his tights shredded, and his underwear long forgotten in the backseat of the car, Yuri is completely bare. Otabek takes great care to make him aware of it. He latches onto one of Yuri’s nipples, brings it to a firm pebble in his mouth, and then repeats the motion.   
  
Yuri grinds up against his thigh, and fists handfuls of whatever fabric that clings to Otabek’s body that he can grasp.   
  
“You could um.” Otabek’s voice goes soft whenever he’s about to lose his nerve. “Dress up whenever.”   
  
“Sure thing, Altin.” Yuri’s voice catches in his throat. His mouth goes dry whenever Otabek looks at him like that. Yuri’s voice suddenly feels like how much he’s smoked. His skin burns red hot wherever Otabek’s eyes so much as linger.   
  
Then, Otabek is hoisting him up onto the emerald fuzz of the pool table. Then, guiding him downward so that he’s propping himself up with his elbows. “Your feet are filthy Plisetsky.”   
  
Otabek disappears for a moment, and Yuri can hear the faint rustling of the plastic shopping bag.   
  
Yuri hoists a foot up into his lap, and sure enough the soles of his feet are covered in dark soot. That’s what happens when you wander around the city streets completely barefoot.   
  
Otabek joins him once more with lube and condom in hand. He doesn’t waste any time, and for that Yuri is grateful.   
  
Otabek presses against him with one finger, and slides in immediately. It’s so much better with lube, that Yuri pushes back against him immediately, and demands another. “More.” for as much as it hurt earlier, there was the promise of something better, something like this. Now that he finally has it, he’s not going to let Otabek take it easy on him. Subsequently, Otabek isn’t going to just jam it in as a result of the muddled combination of need-want-lust that lingers between them.   
  
“Yeah,” Otabek breathes, and then he’s pushing in a second.   
  
Then Yuri’s reaching for one of the shiny gold wrappers that are scattered across the faded green of the table. “Let me put it on,” and Yuri’s ripping it off with his teeth. If he’s going to be honest, he hates the way that they taste, and he hates the way that they smell. But since Otabek paid for them, he should probably use them. Right?   
  
Otabek allows Yuri to sit up, and then pulls him forward on the table. His ass is half on the rail and half on the green, and it’s so fucking awkward, but Otabek won’t stop mauling him while he rolls the condom down.   
  
Yuri’s pawing at the base of his cock, desperately trying to let him know that he’s finished. They can fuck now. Only then does Otabek break the kiss. A thin silver strand of saliva is stretched between their tongues. Yuri desperately wants to think that it’s disgusting. But all he can think about is Otabek. Otabek’s smirk, Otabek’s kind but dangerous eyes, Otabek’s muscles, and Otabek’s cock.   
  
Otabek pushes him forward, and then back onto the rail. Yuri fucking loves it when Otabek pushes him around like this. It makes him feel the way having a fat wad of bills in his hand makes him feel. It makes him feel like wearing the dress makes him feel, only better.  
  
Otabek pushes inside slowly, but gives Yuri very little time to adjust. Otabek is so fucking big it’s unreasonable. With lube, and effort they should be able to just-“Fuck, Otabek.” Yuri swears into his ear. Otabek rubs gentle circles into the small of his back with his thumbs, but Yuri’s discomfort doesn’t for a moment stop him from sliding out and then back in, albeit in an achingly slow pace.   
  
“Feels alright?” Without waiting for a response, Otabek takes Yuri into his hand and works his fist up and down the length of Yuri’s cock. It’s annoying how his body does this to him. Cools down in a half second just because Otabek’s cock is so fucking huge.   
  
After a few thrusts, Yuri’s semi hard and Otabek is kissing him. After a few more, Yuri is fully hard and Otabek can continue the shallow thrusts without moans of complaint from Yuri. Before long, Yuri’s aching and hard, and Yuri just wants to be fucked.   
  
It isn’t until then he responds, and he does so truthfully, “fucking fuck me,” that Otabek moves.   
  
Otabek pulls him forward once more so that his ass is all but hanging off of the end of the table. He wraps his legs around Otabek’s waist. Long abandoned are Otabek’s slow, shallow, get-through-this thrusts. In their wake deep and powerful movements that start in Otabek’s hips, piston upwards into his cock, and aftershocks ripple through his powerful arms and press into his skin. Yuri loves that too. When Otabek leaves thumbprint shaped bruises on his hips and his ass.   
  
“Yuri,” Otabek breathes into his ear.   
  
“O-Ot-Otab,” but his name dies on his tongue with every attempt. There is nothing worth mentioning in this world right now other than Otabek, and of course Otabek’s wonderful fucking cock. Otabek’s wonderful fucking cock, and the low pitched to high pitched creek and crescendo of the basement door being opened, creeeeeek.   
  
Oh fuck no.   
  
Despite the jolt of panic in his stomach, it takes a moment for Yuri to gain momentum. Otabek didn’t hear, and keeps going, pounding into him just right, and grunting into his ear.   
  
It takes the thunk sound of a steel toe boot hitting the first step.   
  
“Hey,” Yuri hisses into his ear and kicks at his side.   
  
Thunk.   
  
The light fixture near the staircase shakes with the weight and the movement of, presumably, grandpa coming down the stairs.   
  
Thunk.   
  
“Hey, asshole, come on,” and Yuri is all but pushing Otabek off of him as he whisper-hisses at Otabek to fucking stop.   
  
Yuri can see the tip of a dust covered boot. Otabek’s eyes go wide with panic making it clear that he’s finally heard the nose. ‘  
  
Yuri scrambled across the table. Otabek awkwardly darting toward the back room. They make it into the laundry room without a second to spare. There’s next to no time between when Otabek dives into the room and wedges himself in the same cramped space that Yuri is in, and when the basement refrigerator is open. The clinking sound of bottles and cans rings through the basement like wind chimes.   
  
Yuri doesn’t so much as dare to exhale, even when in the cool dampness of the basement air, Otabek presses skin against skin, cock against cock in a desperate attempt to keep warm.   
  
Yuri understands that Otabek must be so fucking desperate to get off. He feels the same way. That doesn’t make it any less fucking irksome when Otabek latches onto his neck with his stupid mouth, or tweaks at his nipples, or pokes his ass with his dick while there’s movement from elsewhere in the basement: the shuffle of feet across the carpet, the sound of a beer can being opened, the sound of a lighter being flicked and the long first relief filled inhale of a cigarette.   
  
It’s only after the sound of grandpa’s boots hitting the top stair, and the doors close once more, that Yuri lets Otabek do fucking anything at all.   
  
“What the fuck asshole?” Yuri spits out as soon as he’s sure that it’s safe.   
  
“Yuri,” Otabek whines as he slides his cock back in from behind. Yuri tumbles forward with the motion, and braces himself on the washing machine. Where the table was warm and soft, the laundry room is cold, and dark, and hard around the edges. Yuri feels like he’s getting fucked in some kind of shady back alley when they’re down here.   
  
“Yuri,” Otabek’s thrusts are fast, and hard, and under normal circumstances, they’d feel so fucking good. WIth the mood properly ruined once again, Yuri can’t decide if he likes it or not. “I just-” Otabek pants into his ear.   
  
At least Otabek is gonna get off. He never lasts long when he starts whining.   
  
Just as Yuri expected, Otabek takes Yuri’s cock into his hand. The rough feeling of Otabek’s calloused hand always feels good against his skin.   
  
Yuri closes his eyes, and tries to concentrate on nothing but the feeling of Otabek twitching and coming inside of him. Yuri bites his lip and tries to concentrate on nothing but the feeling of the drag of Otabek’s hand against him. He comes into Otabek’s hand, but it doesn’t feel as good as he’d hoped that it would.   
  
“You should go up stairs and get me some pajamas.” Yuri comments after Otabek has done his best to clean them both off with his undershirt.   
  
“You should go clean your feet off. Get your pajamas, and a pair of mine,” Otabek counters.   
  
“He’s old, but he’s not stupid. There was lube, condoms, our clothes everywhere. He fucking knows,” Yuri responds.   
  
“So it shouldn’t matter who goes upstairs,” Otabek says, effectively ending the conversation. Neither of them would be going up stairs until they were for certain he was in bed. Whenever he and mama fought, he could stay up in his chair for hours brooding.   
  
They were fucked.   
  
Yuri pulls on his underwear. Then, he moves to his discarded bag. Pulls out two Mistys and lights them both. He hands one to Otabek, and Otabek accepts it without a word. “This night would almost be kinda good if it wasn’t so shitty.”  
  
Otabek makes the same kind of disinterested grunt of approval that he always makes in these situations. A “hmm,” mixed with an “uh-huh” that’s just as impactful as the string of curses that spill out of Yuri’s mouth at any given moment.   
  
Otabek pulls on his own boxers. Then he moves to the table. He finds the rack underneath the table, and he racks the balls with loud, shunk shunk motion of the balls. Yuri watches his body as he goes through the motions. His back is taut, and the muscles of his arms move fluid like water underneath his skin.   
  
It pisses him off that the sex that started so good ended up so shitty.   
  
Yuri breaks for Otabek, just the way he likes. Cleanly and powerfully.   
  
Otabek gets a baby run in. Thirty or so balls, before he scratches.   
  
Yuri runs a straight 144. Otabek racks and breaks for him. This is repeated three more times without a word between them. Then, there is the sound of a door slamming upstairs, which is accompanied by more yelling.   
  
“Fucking hag,” Yuri curses under his breath. It’s easy to know that it’s mom that’s fucking acting out of line. It’s always mom. It shows in the way that she runs off and storms back in. It shows in the way that she always yells, and grandpa never yells. He scratches as soon as the words leave his mouth.   
  
Otabek runs another thirty, but it takes for fucking ever. He keeps shooting him those pained looks that he saves for whenever there’s loud arguing, or the strange pressure of years of spoken and unspoken hurt, or anytime really that his family is being fucking weird.   
  
Which is to say all the goddamn time.   
  
“We can stay at my house tonight.” He says finally.   
  
Mom’s voice, high pitched and fucking wailing leaks through the floorboards and floods the basement.   
  
Yuri grits his teeth. Fucking Otabek. Fucking Otabek always trying to fix things. “Sounds fucking great,” Yuri stomps over to the dress and tries to throw it back on without fucking with the zipper. “Let’s get walked in on by your folks too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo I'm on tumblr !! boxwineconfession.tumblr.com


	6. I love You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy endings and successful sex lie ahead for Otabek and Yuri. I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did writing it. I have lots of ideas I'm thinking about outside of Heart Break Beat, however, I have such a soft spot for it. I'm sure I will come back to it again someday. 
> 
> On my tumblr boxwineconfession.tumblr.com I occasionally post HCs etc. I get a lot of asks & prompts about this fic.
> 
> xoxo

Otabek’s parents live in a house that used to be a duplex years and years ago when this area was still properly urban and everyone had a goddamn job. The houses in the suburb, and yes, this shithole of a town qualified as a suburb, were highly desirable. Yuri can remember when they didn’t own the place, they just rented. Otabek and Alina were crammed into the sunroom downstairs. Ami and Nat were in the little bedroom, and his parents and the baby occupied the “master” bedroom. Maybe that’s why Alina likes him so much. He spent a lot of time on a sleeping bag on the floor between Otabek’s bed and Alina’s bed.   
  
Then, the upstairs tenants moved out. Everyone wanted to go back to the city. More restaurants, more money, and more things to do. Alibek bought the rental house when the landlady died, and the upstairs had been unoccupied for years. Like most of his projects, his attempt to return the house to a single dwelling was haphazard at best.   
  
Otabek and Alina had the bedrooms upstairs. Yuri always thought that was so cool, even when he had the run of the house mostly to himself these days. They had everything they needed up here, even after Alibek sold the old stove and fridge upstairs and Ami started moving baby furniture into the “spare” upstairs room that Alina had previously claimed as her studio.  
  
Otabek promised when they got to his house they could shove the futon mattress out the window, and lay out on the roof until it was too cold to stay outside.   
  
Yuri showered and changed into one of Otabek’s long sleeve shirts. It was the textured kind that was almost like long underwear. It hung loose around his middle, and he couldn’t keep the shirt on both shoulders to save his life. He coupled that with a pair of swishy nylon smooth basketball shorts also pilfered from Otabek’s things. He pulled at the string at his waist, as it went on for miles and miles and miles. He knotted it three times before he could be certain they wouldn’t fall down right away. Then, he combed his hair just so that when it dried, it wouldn’t be frizzy and uncombable later.   
  
When Yuri stomped out to the spare room, he found the window open and the futon mattress absent from it’s normal place propped up against the wall. Good. From the open window he could smell the acrid and earthy smell of pot. This meant that Alina was up, and outside, presumably with Otabek. Bad. He doesn’t want to fucking deal with anyone right now other than Otabek.   
  
Yuri pokes his head out the window, “Otabek, let’s go to bed.”   
  
Otabek sits next to Alina on the futon mattress. He too has changed into more comfortable clothes: the gray sweats that hang low on his hips, a band T-shirt that is faded and filled with cigarette holes. It probably belonged to Alina at some point, and before that it probably belonged to one of her cooler older friends. The ones that worked at the record store, or the ones that played in bands down at the amphitheater and charged two dollars a head for a cover charge. Alina was like that, naturally surrounded by cool people that didn’t suck.   
  
Alina exhales a large cloud smoke. Distorted by the faint glow of interior light, it looks purple gray. She coughs slightly. “I’m going inside Yuri. Come sit.”   
  
Yuri obeys and hoists himself out out the window. He shakily stumbles across the slanted part of the roof, and then pushes Alina by the shoulder when he gets to the flat part where the futon rests. He wedges himself between Otabek and Alina, just to let her know that he’s going to take her up on the offer, so she’d better be going inside.   
  
“Heard you’ve had a rough night,” she says, and then raises her glass pipe to her lips. The lighter flicks and crackles. Then, when she’s finished, Yuri steals the lighter and unslings his purse from around his shoulders.   
  
Yuri lights up, but doesn’t offer Otabek a cigarette right away. Instead he locks eyes with him and raises a single brow. He and Alina are close, but she doesn’t have to know every fucking thing.   
  
She smiles and reaches behind him. She roots around between the mattress, the wall, and his back, and it’s really fucking annoying. Finally, she extracts a plastic bottle with a peeled off wrapper. “For your trouble.” It’s about 1/3rd full of a liquid that he’s almost certain isn’t soda. “I know you don’t like beer.   
  
Yuri looks over, and is acutely aware of Otabek sipping on one of the beers that Alibek gave him. Drinking in the parking lot before the dance feels like lifetimes ago. In reality it was only a few hours.   
  
Yuri accepts the bottle, uncaps it, takes a cautious sip, and shivers.   
  
“It’s Kentucky Tavern.” Alina supplies. “It’s awful.”   
  
“No shit,” Yuri responds. Alina is only twenty, which means she still has to scrounge around for booze too. Yuri’s remark is as good as a thank you. Yuri then offers the bottle to Otabek, who shakes his head no. Otabek is smarter than he is. He doesn’t mix liquor.   
  
“Maybe,” Alina shoves her pipe, and her little plastic bag, and all the other things she had scattered about the mattress into her bag: a yellowed pulp novel, a package of hard candy, a pocket knife. “You can round out the night by falling through the roof.”   
  
Otabek makes a dark half chuckle. Yuri doesn’t see the humor in it. At this point, it’s the shitty kind of thing he almost expects. “That’s not fucking funny.”   
  
Alina musses his hair. Then, she leans back and pops the tape from the portable radio. Yuri wonders if it’s out of battery. “Want me to leave this?”   
  
Yuri nods, and fishes his own tape from his purse. He pops it in and mashes play.   
  
Alina scrambles through the window, and Yuri immediately feels as if he can exhale. He presses up against Otabek not out of necessity, but out of natural warmth and closeness.   
  
Otabek takes Yuri’s hand into both of his own. Then, he goes through their nightly bedtime ritual, Yuri’s always a restless sleeper and Otabek swears that this makes him twitch less, and talk out in the night less, and kick less. He doesn’t think that either of them will be sleeping any time soon. He’s too keyed up, and too pissed off. He tried to do everything right, but certain parts of the evening sucked.   
  
Otabek shucks the long sleeve up Yuri’s arm so that it bunches up over his elbow. With calloused fingertips that make him shudder, Otabek runs his hands down the length of soft tender flesh on the underside of Yuri’s forearm. It’s amazing how these hands can fix anything: toys, cars, frozen pipes, leaky roofs.   
  
Yuri takes another swig of the swill that Alina dared to call whiskey. It justifies the mushy thoughts that flow out and spill over from the back of his mind like rain water from the clogged gutters that line the roof.   
  
It’s amazing how these hands can fix his shitty mood, and make it feel like they hadn’t been kicked out. Like mom hadn’t been screaming and shouting about nothing important.   
  
“You’re thinking about what went wrong tonight.” From Otabek, it’s a statement, not a question.   
  
“No.” Yuri responds too quickly. He tucks a stray strand of hair behind his ear, and simultaneously jabs himself in the eye irritating the bruised purple skin around it. “Fuck. That’s like the third time today I’ve done that,” “he curses.   
  
Otabek doesn’t say anything for awhile. His eyes are turned to the stars. They can only see a small patch of the night sky through the trees and the power lines and the other houses, some of them long vacant and others perpetually occupied. The moon is nowhere to be found within that small patch of sky.   
  
The late spring air has grown thick with humidity. The rough black shingles scrape against the underside of his feet where the futon ends and the rooftop begins. In the distance a train lurches past the station. Otabek always liked the sound of the trains. Yuri could rarely sleep through them.   
  
“I’ve been thinking about what it is I could do to show you.” Otabek says it in a particularly dark tone that sends a shiver down his spine. He sounds like Alibek when he’s angry. However, there is not a hint of loudness or malice in his voice. Instead, there’s a rigidness there. Otabek has made up his mind about whatever this is, and Yuri is powerless to do anything about it. “We can’t marry.”   
  
Yuri took another sip of whiskey as soon as Otabek continued to speak. Yuri can feel the sting-burn-drip of liquid touching his soft palate and threatening to migrate out of his mouth via his nose. Yuri swears that he can feel his nose hairs being singed in the process.   
  
“You’re damn right we fucking can’t.” Yuri sputters and coughs. He’s pretty fucking sure that you can get married when you’re sixteen, but only if you’re a girl that is super fucking pregnant and your parents want to get rid of you. A shot gun wedding doesn’t so much work for a couple of fags. Hell, he’s pretty sure Victor and Yuuri’s is all symbolic, and nothing legal. “I don’t fucking want that-.”   
  
Otabek swallows, and Yuri can see the way that he clenches his jaw, and the way that his throat bobs with the motion. It makes the rest of the words that he’d wanted to say dry on his tongue. “You know I don’t like long engagements either.”   
  
Alina had gotten “engaged” when she was sixteen to a guy that cut his long hair off at nineteen and joined the marines. They broke things off when she was eighteen and was going to go off to college. They never really saw each other after he left. Alina cried often when he missed scheduled calls and didn’t return her letters.   
  
“Then why the fuck are we talking about it?”   
  
Otabek drains the last of his beer and launches the can over the side of the roof. There’s a recycling bin down there somewhere, he’ll pick it up later. “Just thinking,” Otabek muses. “About my options.”   
  
He takes Yuri’s arm in his own once more, and continues to touch him in ways that are both benign and hypnotic. The whisper soft touches on his forearm make him want to fall asleep. They make him want to fuck.   
  
Otabek leans in and seals off the distance between them with a kiss. He tastes like beer, and Yuri knows damn well that he tastes like shitty whiskey. The mingled taste is awful, but Otabek feels so good he can’t even care. Otabek deepens the kiss almost immediately, but keeps Yuri gasping for more. The touch of his tongue against Yuri’s is air light and barely there. He pulls back, and makes Yuri plunge deeper.   
  
“What if I moved in with you and Nikolai?”   
  
Yuri can feel his mouth fall open. Slack with shock, and lust, and sheer wonder that Otabek is his and his alone, he stares with wide eyes. Yuri is certain he looks dumb as fuck right now, staring, blinking, and not looking like he can hold a single fucking coherent thought in his head.   
  
They’d dreamed of getting an apartment together after Otabek graduated. A one bedroom on Franklin street a few blocks from Nishi’s. Far away enough from Otabek’s parents, and his mom, but close enough that if they needed them, they could be there.   
  
All that was shot to hell when they actually picked up a copy of the classifieds and saw how expensive they really were. With school, they both worked more than they should have already. Otabek especially, Yuri’s seen his GPA tank and seen him get off of eight hour shifts to cram for the SAT. It’s not fair really, how much rent costs in comparison to how shitty the apartments really were.   
  
Yuri makes several attempts to swallow the large lump in his throat and say something, but saying something means he runs the risk of just blurting out anything.   
  
Which is exactly what fucking happens, “Why?” Fuck. God fucking damnit that is not what he wanted to say. “You already have a toothbrush and a key.” Fuck. He keeps talking and he keeps making it fucking worse.   
  
Otabek opens his mouth to speak again, but Yuri interrupts. “What I meant to say is…” he runs his hands over his hair at the base of his neck. “Ah fuck.” Yuri takes another drink. Cause, yeah, booze is gonna help him articulate what it is that he really means to say. “If you move, we can’t just show up here when she starts fucking yelling.”   
  
Otabek nods, as if he’s considered this.   
  
“Won’t your parents be upset, if you’re not here to help out with bills?” because there’s an unspoken financial commitment to moving in. There would be an assumption that Otabek would be throwing grandpa a few hundred dollars every month to help with bills, and not his own parents. Sometimes something is everything. Otabek may not make much at his part time job at the garage, but it’s something.   
  
“Ah,” Otabek makes a hesitant noise at the back of his throat, as if he’s considered this too, but hasn’t been able to come to a concrete conclusion. “I think they want more space. With the baby and all.” Which is the closest way that Otabek will ever come to saying that he doesn’t care.   
  
“Hey,” Yuri’s voice sounds like every syllable has been dragged down a gravel road. Well, more so than usual. Booze, and a pack of cigarettes, and lots of sex will do that. “I don’t want them to think this is because you’re still mad.” Because it’s clear that Otabek has thought this through. However, he’s just gotten to the point where things with Mr. and Mrs. Altin are almost, kind of, maybe back to normal.   
  
Grandpa wouldn’t give a fuck. He wouldn’t give a fuck and it was the other way around, and Yuri was dragging his particle board dresser over to the overstuffed duplex. He likes Otabek. Sometimes he likes Otabek so much that Yuri feels like Otabek is the favorite. Otabek is patient, and slow moving, and deliberate, much like grandpa.   
  
Fucking old men. Both of them. Was that going to be his life now? Breakfast at 6:30 AM at Rosie’s diner and fixing cars all fucking day.   
  
Otabek pinches a Misty from Yuri’s bag. He lights up, takes a long drag, and passes it off to Yuri immediately. Yuri accepts, and mirrors the action before passing it back to Otabek.   
  
“Do you want me to or not?”   
  
It would be kind of nice, to not have to pack up his shit every few days. It would be kind of nice to not leave his favorite sweater at the Altin’s and then have to beg to get it back from whichever fucking brat stole it. It would be nice, even if that meant giving up occasional access to a fuller refrigerator and pantry. He’s totally okay with living with two old codgers. Especially if one of them is Otabek. “Yeah, Altin. I do.”   
  
Otabek doesn’t pass the cigarette back to Yuri. He holds it awkwardly between his fingers, and brings it to Yuri’s lips. Yuri accepts. He’d never admit this, but it’s almost sweet, the way that Otabek moves his tension filled body in strange and awkward ways just to be closer to him.   
  
Otabek takes another drag and asks, “Done with this?”   
  
“Yeah,” Yuri says. He can feel his voice heat up and curl into something that’s almost like a smile. “Listen to my voice, it’s awful.”   
  
Otabek snubs out the half used cigarette on the shingle tiles. Yuri has half a thought to tell him to stuff it back down into the pack. “It’s cause you bitch so much Plisetsky.”   
  
Yuri can feel the hot venomous tinge of a response build up in the back of his throat. Otabek doesn’t give him a chance to shape it and spit it out at him. Otabek has pressed his lips to Yuri’s countless times already tonight. Yet, this one feels different. Yuri refuses to believe it's because of something so simple as a change of address on Otabek’s license. But it feels more real than the burning sensation of booze numbing his lips.   
  
A thousand more questions and suspicions swirl at the back of Yuri’s mind. It’s not something that Otabek can just step in and fix with his tools, and his brain, and his muscle. It doesn’t stop Yuri from feeling that same dumbstruck glow of wonder and adoration that he always feels when Otabek patches something up: the Buick’s transmission, the Geo’s clutch, the front burner on the stove, and the hot water heater on a cold rainy day.   
  
Otabek kisses him softly, and slowly. Yuri takes this as an invitation to take control. He clambers into Otabek’s lap. He doesn’t break the kiss as he moves. Instead, they’re left with something awkward, and needy, and unrefined. Teeth knock against teeth, a gentle nip turns into a bite that’s too hard. Yuri settles into Otabek’s lap and corrects the kiss with just enough tongue and just enough pressure. He takes fistfuls of Otabek’s t-shirt in a futile attempt to pull their crushed together bodies closer.   
  
It’s Otabek who finally breaks the kiss. “If you’re still uncertain.” Otabek’s hands rest on his hip, and tugs at the tangled mess of white drawstring that’s been knotted multiple times at Yuri’s waist. “Remember that I don’t often change my mind.”   
  
It’s been almost a year since Yuri and Otabek unceremoniously jerked each other off in bed together. In highschool time, that was decades.   
  
This time it’s Yuri’s turn to make a neutral sound of acknowledgement. “Hm,” because it’s rare for Otabek to say so much at once. Yuri responds in a tone that’s barely above a whisper, and only millimeters away from Otabek’s face, “Me either.”   
  
“Yuri,” Otabek’s hands disappear into the black mesh of the shorts. Otabek is typically quick to knead the flesh of his ass until he’s panting and rubbing furiously against Otabek’s jeans. Instead, his hands simply linger there as if asking permission. “Did you bring the-.”   
  
“In my bag,” Yuri responds.   
  
Otabek’s hands leave his ass, and trail up his sides. Otabek’s hands trail against the flat of his stomach, and cup his chest. Normally these actions set his skin ablaze and leave him begging for more.   
  
Now? Yuri is well aware of the growing bulge in his pants. He takes great delight in sitting on Otabek’s matching bulge and grinding downward. Instead of an all consuming fire, Yuri accepts the low burn that has settled in his gut and smoulders for Otabek and Otabek only. Yuri’s already covered in hickeys from an entire night of attempts to do this. He’s already fucked open from Otabek’s fingers and his cock. Not to mention, “think we’ll get it right this time?” What’s the fucking point in rushing?   
  
“Yeah,” Otabek looks up with him at half lidded eyes. He doesn’t break contact for a moment while he gropes blindly for Yuri’s bag. “Lose the shorts Plisetsky.”   
  
“Right.” Although he tied so many knots, Yuri wonders how he’s going to get them off.   
  
Otabek finds the lube, and sets it between them on the futon mattress. Then, he cants his hips upward and removes his sweats.   
  
Yuri frees himself of the shorts and kicks them over the side of the mattress, and dangerously close to the edge of the roof. He climbs back into Otabek’s lap. “You can’t fuck me in just a shirt.” He says guiding the hem of Otabek’s shirt higher and higher until it’s bunched up around his armpits and Yuri can see his dusky nipples faint in the glow of the evening light.   
  
“We can’t be naked.” In contrast to what he just said, Otabek raises his arms to allow Yuri to shuck the shirt. Then, Otabek’s hands drift to Yuri’s shirt. Otabek bunches the hem up in his hand lifting it over his hips. However, he doesn’t raise it completely over his head. Otabek’s hand wraps around Yuri’s cock. Otabek circles the head of Yuri’s cock with his thumb, using the precome that has pooled there as lubricant. “What if we do fall through the roof?”   
  
“You’re a real fu-” Yuri’s breath catches in his throat. Otabek wraps his hand around Yuri’s shaft, and gives him a single hard pump. “Fucking piece-” Otabek repeats the motion. “Piece of work,” Altin.”   
  
“Should we really risk it?” Otabek chuckles. Somewhere between Otabek’s hands which squeeze him just right, Otabek does pull his shirt up over his head. It doesn’t stop Yuri from cursing at Otabek all the while. “Cock tease,” and “fucker” and the always eloquent “fucking fucker.” It’s hard to be nice when all he can think about is coming into Otabek’s hand.   
  
Otabek shuts him up with a kiss. It’s playful in only the frustrating, hair pulling, lip biting kind of way that Otabek can be. “Wanna come?” Otabek asks. Their faces are still touching, and Yuri can feel the beginning sandpapery sensation of Otabek getting five o clock shadow. Add that to the list of all the little things about Otabek: suspenders, cocky half smiles, the smell of hair product, that turn him on.   
  
“Fuck no.” Yuri punctuates the statement by handing him the bottle of lube. “Make yourself useful Altin.”   
  
Yuri can hear the sharp click of the bottle. Otabek reaches behind him, and Yuri steadies himself by bracing his hands on either side of Otabek’s shoulder. The position gives him perfect access to Otabek’s neck, his collarbones, his ear lobes. It’s Yuri’s turn to be playful.   
  
Otabek is a tough guy. A tough guy in a leather jacket that doesn’t tolerate bullshit, and totally loves having his earlobe nibbled on. Totally loves having all sorts of bullshit whispered into his ear. “Love you Altin.” Then there’s the familiar pressure and push of Otabek’s finger at his ass. It slides in with minimal resistance. It fucking should. This is only the third fucking time they’ve tried to have sex tonight. “Gonna ride you.”   
  
Otabek inserts another finger, and scissors his fingers: in and out, wide and wider still like they haven’t fucked within the past hour or so. Like it’s been a few days. It’s easy for Yuri to get lost in the sounds of Otabek grunting against the skin of his neck, and the slick squelching sound of Otabek’s fingers sliding in and out. Where he’d usually grow impatient, the fight in him is gone. All he wants is Otabek. All he wants is Otabek, and to come, preferably with Otabek.   
  
Before he can truly understand what’s going on, the pressure from inside is gone. Otabek taps lightly on his hip with sticky, lube covered fingers. Yuri moves his body downwards, trusting that Otabek has a firm girp on the base of his cock and all he has to do is slide down.   
  
Sliding down on Otabek’s cock feels like getting into a hot bath after being out in the cold for too long. The water and steam feel so impossibly, good, but sting until he gets used to it. Otabek’s cock is the same way. Sliding down onto Otabek’s cock feels like laying in the sun on a summer afternoon. Comforting on the surface, with a low steady threat to burn him alive.   
  
Otabek reaches his arms back around Yuri’s body and grabs onto his ass, pushing him the remaining bit so that he’s bottomed out completely. Then, he moves his hips forward. “Love you more, Plisetsky.”   
  
There’s something to be said about the way that Otabek just takes what he wants from Yuri while simultaneously giving him what he wants. It would be so easy to let Otabek fuck up into him. The way that Otabek caresses him from the inside, the way that his body is so fucking open and so fucking ready. It would be so easy to let Otabek hold onto his ass and fuck up into him.   
  
But that’s not exactly riding him is it?   
  
Yuri steadies himself on Otabek’s shoulders. Pushes his bare back toward the wall of the house. Yuri can feel the flaky bits of chipped paint underneath his palms. It’s hard to care about all the little things, when he’s got Otabek under him, and in him.   
  
It takes Yuri a moment to gain momentum and glide into a rhythm. Otabek refuses to relinquish control of their movements outright. Yuri has find the right speed and the right angle to match Otabek thrust for thrust.   
  
When it finally happens, Yuri screws his eyes shut and swear to god he sees stars brighter and whiter than those that dot the nighttime sky surrounding them. Otabek hits that spot in him just right: the spot that makes him leak until he’s dripping down his shaft and onto his stomach. The spot that makes him come really quickly. The spot that makes him clench down on Otabek’s cock every time he moves down and Otabek thrusts up.   
  
“Beka,” It comes out in a sob that barely sounds like his own voice. “‘Gonna, not gonna.” His mouth falls open as if he intends to let another syllable out. Instead, he throws his head back, and clenches down on Otabek harder still.   
  
Otabek responds in kind, “same.”   
  
Thank fucking god. Yuri lets go of one of Otabek’s shoulders, and mashes their foreheads together awkwardly so that he can fist his cock in frantic movements. In another disjointed set of movements, one of Otabek’s hands leaves his ass, and joins Yuri’s hand on his cock. Yuri doesn’t for a moment stop moving, stop clenching, stop grinding.   
  
They really could fall through the roof right now, and Yuri would be hard pressed to give a fuck. Especially with the way it feels when Otabek comes deep inside of his ass like he’s doing now. Otabek often dryly complains that it’s messy, and it’s dirty, but Yuri fucking loves it because it’s messy and it’s dirty.   
  
Yuri rides Otabek through his orgasm. Otabek’s cock stops twitching, but he still tries to meet him thrust for thrust. It isn’t long before Yuri’s coming all over Otabek’s hand.   
  
For a moment, there’s nothing between them but labored breath, and soft little sighs that neither of them would own up to.  
  
Somehow, Otabek finds the energy to push him back onto the futon mattress, and clean them both up with his discarded t-shirt.   
  
“Holy fuck,” Yuri sighs when he finally catches his breath. “We finally fucking did it.”   
  
Otabek lays down next to him, and wraps an arm around him. It’s cooled down enough that when they’re not fucking, being completely naked outside is not ideal. “Yeah,” Otabek mouths into his shoulder.   
  
“Beka,” Yuri tries to sound serious, but he can’t hide the overeager tone that creeps into his voice when he’s about to get Otabek, and get him good. “What if fucking Alibek was having one of those, “it’s one a.m. and I need to change the oil in the car moments?” huh? What if he’s fucking around down in the garage and heard everything.”   
  
“That’s not funny Plisetsky.”   
  
“It’s kind of fucking funny.”   
  
Otabek shakes his head in frustration. “You’re awful Plisetsky.”   
  
Yuri doesn’t respond. He reaches for Otabek’s discarded sweats and fumbles around through their discarded clothes.   
  
“What are you looking for?”   
  
“Your pocket knife.”   
  
“It’s inside.” Then Otabek follows up, “Why?”   
  
“I fucking told you,” Yuri insists. “I need to lance my blisters.” Yuri hikes his leg high, up over his chest and into Otabek’s field of vision. It’s dark though, so he probably can’t see how inflamed the skin on his toes are.   
  
“Sexy, Plisetsky.” Otabek sounds as if he’s done with Yuri for forever with that one remark, but Yuri knows better. “I’ll get it in a minute okay?”   
  
“Okay,” Yuri rolls over onto his stomach, scoots forward, and presses play on the tape player. Otabek likes to cuddle, but Yuri always has a hard time holding still. Only after the music comes back on does Yuri crawl back into Otabek’s open and waiting arms.   
  
When I look in your eyes, I see words I can't describe  
Every word I'm telling you and I tell you, I love you  
I'm playing it straight for once 'cause, baby I love you, I really do  
  
“Yuri.” Yuri cuddles into Otabek’s chest. In this position, he can feel Otabek’s hot breath puff against the crown of his head. It’s nice, in every sense of the word.   
  
“Hm?”   
  
“I’m gonna crush that tape.”   
  
At that moment, the song turns to the chorus. There’s the pleading wail of I love you.   
  
“Oh come on, this one is sweet. You should be all about it.”   
  
“I was,” Otabek deadpans. “The first three times I heard it tonight.”   
  
Otabek threads his hands through Yuri’s hair. The soft simple drag of fingers down his scalp make his eyes flutter closed, and back open, closed and back open.   
  
“That’s right. I forgot.” Yuri moves his hands down Otabek’s waist. He grabs two overflowing handfuls of Otabek’s perfect toned ass. Otabek has always gone on and on and on about how Yuri’s ass is nice. Not that it’s fair to compare his own body to Otabek’s but Yuri can’t see how it even fucking compares. He’s so fucking hot. “Otabek Altin Swayze,” It’s a good nickname. He’s not letting it go.   
  
“Something like that.”   
  
“Can we get some blankets and sleep out here?”   
  
“You always get too cold,” Otabek explains.  
  
“You never bring out enough blankets,” Yuri responds.   
  
“Because I’m afraid you’ll roll off the roof.”   
  
Yuri slaps playfully at Otabek’s chest. “For fuck’s sake Beka.” It goes quiet between them once more, before Yuri pulls himself out of an almost-sleep kind of lull. “We didn’t get our pictures done.”   
  
“Didn’t know you really wanted one.”   
  
“I didn’t.” Yuri supplies quickly and incredulously, revealing that he did in fact want one. “Not really anyway.” Yuri raises his arms above their heads, and makes a frame with this thumb and forefinger. Through the mock frame, Yuri catches several stars in the sky. “This would make a good one wouldn’t it? You naked.”   
  
“You’re naked too Yuri.” 

* * *

Otabek knew that officially moving in with Yuri would mean that some things would change, and others wouldn’t change at all. What he didn’t expect was the nuance and the subtlety of the things that did change. It’s strange to feel carpet under his toes as he barrels downstairs in the morning for coffee. The steps upstairs at his parents’ house are hardwood.   
  
It’s strange to be at Yuri’s house, and have his favorite ceramic mug, the one that he’s kept for years at his parents house, in the cabinet alongside Yuri’s.   
  
It’s also wonderful, to come down stairs and see Yuri standing at the counter with his hair in a messy bun. It’s getting longer now, and Otabek hopes that he keeps it that way.   
  
The green digital clock on the microwave suggests that it’s barely eight in the morning.   
  
However, the multiple pyrex mixing bowls, pastry bags, and discarded handmixer scattered about Yuri suggest otherwise. Yuri’s got powdered sugar on the back of his purple shirt. It’s scattered about the countertops and onto the floor as well.   
  
Otabek’s foot hits the floorboard that joins the foyer to the kitchen, It creaks under his weight, and Yuri turns on his heel to greet him.   
  
“Otabek.” His expression is dead serious. Mouth a firm line, brows furrowed. He crosses his arms across his chest effectively. “It’s good that you finally woke the fuck up.”   
  
“Uh-huh,” Otabek all but grunts as he lurches forward to the nicotine yellow stained Mr. Coffee machine and pours himself a cup.   
  
“I’m fucking serious. If I don’t relearn how to make lilies out of fucking frosting, I’m gonna have to repay dumbass and lardass all the money they gave us.”   
  
Which implicitly means that Otabek would also be on the hook. At the time, their grandiose purchases: pearls out of hock, lube, milkshakes and cigarettes sounded like the best purchases ever. A few weeks later, now that they’re flat broke, and the electric bill is due? Not their wisest.   
  
“What do you need me to do?” Otabek surveys the scene before him in closer detail. Between the discarded pastry bags and flower nails, there’s an overfilled ashtray. Several empty tab soda cans line the counter, which begs the question, how long has Yuri been at this?   
  
The kitchen television is on, but not turned to an actual station. The screen snows static from on high. Closer inspection reveals that the rabbit ear antenna fell off. Several cats scatter as he moves towards the counter to clear away some of the filth that should not be near food, even if it’s just for practice.   
  
Several cats follow too closely and meow when he nearly kicks them implying that they haven’t been fed yet.   
  
“Make me breakfast,” Yuri pouts. “And give me a kiss.”   
  
Otabek deposits emptied the cans into the trash, then empties the partially emptied cans into the sink. THen, and only then does he walk back around the kitchen table and into Yuri’s space. He frames Yuri’s face with a hand on his neck, and a hand on his shoulder. He traces Yuri’s thumb with his collarbone lightly.   
  
Yuri’s lips part as soon as their lips meet. He gasps into the kiss, and that alone is enough to make Otabek’s knees weak. They break apart, and come back together again, over and over and over again until Yuri is rocking against him. “You have morning breath babe.”   
  
“You have a semi.”   
  
“Make me breakfast Altin.”   
  
Otabek moves over to the refrigerator. He pops another can of Tab open and brings it to the counter. From the pantry he extracts a box of store brand toaster pastries. Chocolate flavored of course, because that is what Yuri likes best. Otabek prefers unfrosted strawberry, but Yuri calls him a monster whenever he gets those from the store instead.   
  
Otabek unwraps them, puts them onto a paper plate, and slathers plenty of margarine over the top. Then, he pops them into the microwave, turns the dial, and joins Yuri again at the counter.   
  
He wraps his arms around Yuri’s waist from behind, and kisses him softly on the shell of his ear. Otabek knew that some things would change, and other things would stay the same when he moved in with Yuri. Moments like this, while tender and domestic are not that much different from other similar times when he watched Yuri burn instant rice on the stove top, or make sandwiches at the counter out of all sorts of things that should not go into sandwiches: crackers, dried fruit, canned beans.  
  
The difference is that Inna got in at one in the morning drunk and knocked over the curio cabinet in the living room, and the didn’t leave for his parents’ house out the backdoor. Otabek wonders if Yuri has been up since then.   
  
Otabek isn’t good at grand sweeping gestures. He can’t sew up a new outfit, and take Yuri out for a night on the town. He can’t leverage money out of thin air. But he is hopeful. More than he hopes that college is good, and classes are interesting, and the motorcycle turns over when he goes out to the garage and starts it up, he hopes that Yuri understands this. He hopes that Yuri knows that he works in little, microscopic gestures that build up over time and are enacted every single day.   
  
In the distance, the microwave dings. Otabek can’t be bothered to move. Not right now.   
  
“Beka,” Yuri turns to him, and presses his lips close to his. “Thanks. Thanks for putting up with me, and moving in, and making me pop-tarts,” and seals his statement with a kiss. 


End file.
